


sparks fly whenever you smile

by safeandsound13



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Ark AU, Best Friends, Daddy Kink, Double Dating, Established Relationship, Exes, F/M, Family Feels, Family Reunions, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Mental Health Issues, Mildly Dubious Consent, Parental Issues, Possessive Behavior, Possessiveness, Pregnancy, Pregnancy Kink, Reunions, Smut, Surprise Child, Teacher-Student Relationship, brief mentions of miscarriage, my apologies these tags are as messy as the thought process of the 100 writers room, omg they were roommates, will be adding tags for each chapter
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-11-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 19:20:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24061993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/safeandsound13/pseuds/safeandsound13
Summary: prompt fills from tumblr to celebrate eliza winning an useless e! online poll. next stop, an emmy!#1Clarke is blackmailed into going on a double date with Murphy and his crush. The crush happens to be the other simultaneous girlfriend of Clarke's ex, and the crush's emotional support friend turns out to be Clarke's ex-fuck buddy. It's a recipe for disaster.#2Bellamy loves holding grudges. Clarke can't figure out why he lets her get away with everything.#4Hope steps out of the anomaly with Bellamy and Clarke's daughter.#5Bellamy is upset their daughter doesn't want to be called 'baby' anymore.#6Clarke's mom doesn't like Bellamy.#7Clarke's flunking Mr. Blake's Earth History class.
Relationships: Bellamy Blake & Clarke Griffin & Madi, Bellamy Blake & Madi, Bellamy Blake & Raven Reyes, Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, Clarke Griffin & John Murphy, Clarke Griffin & Madi, John Murphy/Raven Reyes
Comments: 162
Kudos: 434





	1. gotta get to rockbottom

**Author's Note:**

> these are prompts fills from tumblr that i am filling because i bullied people into voting for eliza to win tv's top leading this year and while i still think they should've done it out of the kindness in their hearts and admiration for mrs eliza morley professionally known as eliza taylor, i agree the poll was pretty much useless. fingers crossed for a celebratory selfie of her face sometime next week but i'm not getting my hopes up.
> 
> we did it for her<3
> 
> this first one is for [gin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/iileftherbehind/pseuds/iileftherbehind) and [chloe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/belizarke/pseuds/belizarke) who wanted clurphy and murven. i didnt ask for any details because i didnt want any and i would like to formally apologize to memori for me disrespecting them like this, but i tried! it's mostly crack and mental health stuff and angsty exes goodness nobody asked for and also im super nervous bc chloe is like a full on murphy stan so it'll be embarrassing if she hates this. ANYWAY
> 
> song in title is from sparks fly by taylor swift bc its cheesy and i love it  
> song in chap title hard times by paramore bc why not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke is blackmailed into going on a double date with Murphy and his crush. The crush happens to be the other simultaneous girlfriend of Clarke's ex, and the crush's emotional support friend turns out to be Clarke's ex-fuck buddy. It's a recipe for disaster.

Clarke will be the last person to complain about people being bad back-texters, but when Murphy shows up in her text messages she has to do a double take. They're not even really friends by her definition  — he was one of her classmates in women’s studies whomst she did one half of a project with before he got suspended for setting his labpartners eyebrows on fire in a different class. On purpose. 

Their last text message exchange is from eight months ago. She doesn’t think she's seen him in person for at least twice as long. John “Ponzi Scheme” Murphy a certified stoner with a love of wearing shorts and a hawaiian shirt no matter what the season, and Clarke a trust fund princess with a chip on her shoulder and a serious fear of failure, they tended to run in different social circles.

Murphy  
  
**October 3rd 2019** 10:15 PM  
Today I will be waiting until 11:11 to wish all the best for you, stranger, because you deserve happiness and I am rooting for all your wishes to come true! ❁  


**Today** 3:05 AM  
arkaydia street 39, 1.30 pm may 13  
Ominous  
**Read** 8:48 AM

It’s not even something remotely non-shady, just a time and a place. She knows he hates texting, still owns a 2007 nokia phone that’s being held together with duct tape. At least, he did the last time she saw him. Which was, and she cannot stress enough, over a year and a half ago.

Yet, she doesn’t say no. Murphy was by far her best friend, nor was he particularly smart, or kind, or a stimulating conversational partner, or attractive, but they were alike on many other fronts. In a lot of ways, they were both outsiders. He was kind of funny, too, and always packed the best snacks, and yeah, the only reason he was even in her women's studies class was because he was a nineteen year old virgin and thought it would somehow magically teach him how to pick up women. Still, none of that mattered.

Clarke was kind of curious.

The place ends up being a nice, two-story family home with welcome mat and a tire-swing in the garden. When she goes to ring the doorbell, she notices the newspaper stuck to the door with a bandaid, written on with black marker. It just says ‘ _ Garage _ ’ in block letters with a thick arrow pointing around back, which definitely fits Murphy’s narrative better, so it’s where she goes.

Before she’s even turned the corner she can hear the distant, loud pump of jazz music and once she pushes up the white roll doors, it’s revealed to be an incredibly tone-deaf rendition of I’d Rather Go Blind. The music’s nice, and even the backup singing is relatively okay, the girl at the front just doesn’t really have any singing capabilities whatsoever. 

She spots Murphy on the ratty couch off on the side, and she plops down on it beside him. 

“Band practice,” he offers, not looking up from where he’s sorting through a bunch of rocks, spread out on the upside-down crate in front of him. 

She nods, cringing slightly as the angry looking girl goes for a note that’s not anywhere  _ near  _ the frequency of the human hearing range. “Poor Etta James.”

Murphy picks up a rock, brushing it off on his shorts before carefully putting it in the plastic lunchbox in his lap. Does he have a rock collection, is that what this is? He lifts one of his shoulders in a shrug, supplies, “Ontari showed up one day with her mobster cousin demanding to be our lead singer so we let her.” He briefly looks up at the girl, currently red in the face from yelling at the scrawny guy holding a saxophone. “Old folks homes are half of the gigs we get anyway, and they’re all deaf.”

Clarke just stares at him, letting the silence drag for another second before she urges, “So.”

“So,” he echoes, deadpan, lifting a loupe to one of the sandstones, rubbing his thumb over it’s surface. The nail is painted a chipped purple.

She stares at him some more, expectant, but when more silence follows and Ontari starts crooning like a dying cat again, she breaks, “Why am I here?”

“Oh,” he says, like it’s some sort of afterthought. “I need you to come on a double date with me."

Absolutely fucking not. "I have a girlfriend."

Murphy finally looks at her, not very impressed. "Rail it in. We're Facebook friends, remember?" She didn’t remember, and now she does, she wants to unremember him and his in depth ratings of different Waffle Houses across the state. He scowls, as if the thought disgusts him as much as it does her, which,  _ rude _ . "I meant as my wingwoman, not my date."

Clarke leans back against the couch with her arms crossed, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. His last girlfriend took his virginity and then ran off with his car, although he insists he gave it to her as a thank-you present. It was a really shitty little 1988 Fiat Panda that had been used in a ram-raid once upon a time. To this day, Clarke’s not sure what Emori could have possibly gained from that exchange. She does, however, know he has bad taste in girls. "Who’s the date with?"

He tries hard to keep a blank face and she can tell. How stupid. "Raven Reyes."

Not bad taste, then. Out of his league, definitely. Maybe even imaginary, now Clarke really thinks about, brows furrowing. "Didn’t you push her down the stairs freshman year?"

He rolls his eyes, as if she’s stupid for even bringing it up. "And she pantsed me in front of the entire school so we're even."

"She still has a limp,” Clarke presses, increduled, eyes slightly widened.

He snorts, mirthless. "Bygones be bygones.”

It’s Raven’s funeral. Still, something’s not adding up. Murphy has friends. Not a lot, but definitely more than her. And definitely ones he’s spoken to in 2020. "Who’s her wingman?"

To his credit, he flinches. "Bellamy."

At first, she freezes, and then her heart kickstarts into overdrive and she’s pushing herself up straighter, her jaw clenching. All of a sudden, she feels kind of awkward. "Bellamy Blake?"

"How many Bellamy’s from Polis you know?" He counters, dry.

She actually reels back, can’t keep the anger out of her voice. "Are you insane?"

He purses his lips. "Don’t you remember all those personality tests you made me take in the library when we were supposed to be studying?"

Was that supposed to be a comeback? She flicks her eyes up to the ceiling. "Yeah, I was shocked by the amount of disorders one person can have."

His eyes narrow. "Very funny, Griffin."

She’s not kidding. "You know me and Bellamy can’t be in the same room together,” she explains, rationally, shrugging lamely. The last time she saw him, they got kicked out of the library because their ‘ _ glaring was too disruptive’ _ . The last time they actually spoke was even worse. “I hate him. He hates me. I hate you. He hates you."

"That's the point,” he replies, bored, picking up a toothbrush and brushing sand out of an ugly brown conglomerate’s crevices. "I think Reyes is convinced we won’t work out because we can’t stop arguing, but I want to show her it could always be worse."

"Wow,” she exclaims, shaking her head to see if it’ll help clear some of the disbelief away. It doesn’t. 

Murphy looks offended. "Just because I’m dyslexic doesn’t mean I’m stupid, Clarke."

"Shut up," she snarks back, only half-heated. Her face morphs into something genuinely apologetic, although she’s not that sorry she doesn’t have to spend an entire night at some fancy restaurant in tense, heavy silence with her former classmate, his date and her sort-of-ex. She has enough of those nights at family dinner nowadays. "I’m sorry, but I’m not doing it."

He tosses the rock back on top of the crate, turning so he can look at her better. He sounds genuinely surprised. "Why not?”

Clarke lifts a shoulder. "I’m busy."

His mouth twitches. "I haven't even said a date yet."

"When is it?

"Friday."

"I’m busy.”

He narrows his eyes into sliths, and maybe it’s supposed to be threatening but all she feels like doing is laugh. "I will blackmail you if I have to."

Clarke actually does, letting out a short, bright burst of laughter before her face steels into something closely resembling smugness as she calls his obvious bluff. There’s no way. Clarke is not going to pretend she’s an angel but she’s a pro at covering up all her past indiscretions, perks of growing up a politician’s daughter. "You got nothing on me, Murphy."

He huffs, and then a slow smirk starts to spread across his lips, catching her by surprise. Now she’s a little scared. "I know you boned Niylah sophomore year even though she was your TA and I know she was very lenient on your deadlines in return."

"How on earth would you know that?"

"She’s my cousin.” He actually looks like the cat that got the cream now and a wave of revulsion rolls up her stomach. “Don't you see the likeness?"

"That’s fucking disgusting.” She scrunches up her nose, rubbing circles on her temples with her fingers as her head spins from her own reality being thrown upside down. “I feel like I need several retrospective STD tests now."

He seems to have it all planned out, explaining as if rehearsed before, "We all know you wont get suspended because your mommy’s friends with Dean Jaha, but you’ll at the very least will have to retake historical art and we both know you won't survive another six months of having to listen to Wallace's monologues."

He’s got her there. She grits her teeth, grudgingly. "What time?"

"You're a doll,” he deadpans, batting his eyelashes. 

"Fuck off, Murphy."

"Eight."

Clarke rises to her feet, ready to get the hell out of here. "Text me where to be and I'll be there."

"Wear something nice," he taunts, just as she side-steps the crate, and she nearly trips over it in the process. "Maybe your rack will distract Bellamy long enough to get us through the appetizer without an argument."

"Seriously go fuck yourself, Murphy,” she repeats herself, sending him a look that could cut glass as she stomps back toward the roll doors. Over her shoulder, she lets him know, "And your band sucks."

He cups his hands around his mouth, and Clarke ignores the daggers the lead singer is currently sending her. Hopefully she won’t wake up beside a dead horse head tomorrow, but maybe that’s enough of an excuse to get out of the date. "That's all part of our charm!"

A middle finger, and she’s out of the garage and on her way back to her dorms.

***

"You do realize this is going to be an epic disaster, don't you?" Clarke wonders even if she already knows the answer, staring up at the old bowling hall, blue neon lights flickering in the darkness.

He claps her on the shoulder, not as much supportively as a sign for her to get moving inside. "You’re great in a crisis, princess."

"Don't call me that, Squidward."

"Words can hurt,” he shoots back, faux-pained.

"You'll live," she muses, giving him a sidelong glance. He looks like he took fashion advice from a nineties romcom; a long sleeved graphic Simple Plan t-shirt layered with a button up, unbuttoned of course, shell necklace around his neck and stylefully greasy hair parted in the middle. At least he smells like he showered.

Once they get inside they’re informed the other half of their party is already there, making Clarke’s stomach churn uncomfortably, so they wait in line to get a pair of shoes. He kicks off his flip flops and wiggles his toes when he sees her watching, "Easy access,” and Clarke scowls at the thought of having to go bareback on a pair of bowling shoes. It’s fungus waiting to happen.

He leads them to one of the lanes, blocking her view as they approach the two people sitting at the booth at the end of it. Clarke keeps her eyes strictly on Raven as she tries to get her heart rate to slow down, watching as Murphy gives her an awkward cool guy nod. His date just sends him a weirded out look in return and then he steps aside, motioning at Clarke with a roll of his eyes, tone of his voice reminding her she really is nothing more but a prop, "Raven, Bellamy, you remember Clarke."

"Hi," she pushes out, feeling out of breath, uncomfortably adjusting the strap of her purse on her shoulder. It’s just so fucking awkward. Raven gives her a respectable nod of recognition  —  one only two girls wronged by the same two-timing surfer dude could get down  —  and her and Bellamy just share a reluctant exchange of glances.

"Clarke,” he acknowledges, especially gruff, face unreadable.

"Bellamy,” she says, the name tasting weird in her mouth as he holds her gaze.

She looks away quickly and pretends to listen to Murphy talking mad shit about his bowling skills, arms crossed over her chest, still feeling his heavy gaze on her. Out of the corner of her eye she notices he's giving her a slow, inconspicuous once over, and she's not ashamed to say it fills her with great satisfaction. She quickly dials it down, remembering it was  _ Murphy’ _ s idea for her to dress up to begin with. She spent over fifty minutes in front of the mirror, trying to figure out how to toe the line between looking effortlessly ' _ I came straight from class and didn’t even bother to change because I don't care _ ' sexy and looking slutty on purpose. She thinks she managed with the short denim skirt and the pale pink oversized v-neck sweater that happens to slip off her shoulder more often than not, but over her dead body will she ever admit it and give credit where it’s unfortunately due.

NOT that she wants Bellamy to think she's sexy. She just wants him to know she is better than him in every way and he can go fuck himself. It’s why she’s being the better person and all, coming here, being polite, not actually telling him to go fuck himself.

While some pre-teen girl  —  who refers to Murphy as 'sir' for some reason?  —  gets their drink order, she allows herself the same courtesy, figuring everyone will be sufficiently distracted.

Clarke is not a petty person. Although she might hate Bellamy Blake with the passion of a thousand fiery suns, she can admit he is totally hot. Jeans, a simply black t-shirt, messy curls. He even makes the bowling shoes look cute. 

She’s definitely ashamed to admit it, but sometimes when she’s really desperate she even still looks at the dick pics he sent her, gets herself off to them. It’s a little fucked up and she should probably have deleted them a long time ago, but he has a great dick and the memories off their nightly adventures still come easily to her. 

It’s a little awkward at first. Murphy literally picked the one dating location that couldn't make it more obvious that Raven's leg still isn’t what it used to be. And four out of four people in this room carry a grudge for at least  — but not limited to  —  one of the other people in the room. And when they stuff themselves into the booth at the end of lane, for some reason Murphy squeezes in after her, and Raven squeezes in after Bellamy, so the two of them end up stuck next to each other. A strange tension is palpable in the air and there’s an unnatural lull in the conversation soon enough.

Murphy will probably say something offensive if they’re quiet for even just thirty more seconds, and Raven obviously prefers not to talk at all, and Bellamy is too petty and proud to actually start a conversation, so it’s up to her, really.

"So what made you pick this place, Murphy?" Clarke tries to break the uncomfortable silence after Raven comes back from her first two throws, a near spare, hobbling just slightly on her leg. She can’t keep the skepticism out of her voice completely, but she’s giving him the perfect chance to say something romantic.

"Employee discount," he replies easily and Clarke starts elbowing him discreetly, throwing in a small glare. Yet he boulders on confidently, nibbling on a pistachio as shoves her elbow aside. "I work here part-time."

She did always wonder what he got up to after being suspended. Managing a garage band and cleaning bowling shoes about fits the best case scenario, yeah.

Raven takes a sip of her cherry coke, drinking him in slowly and without shame because she’s just cool like that. "The more important question is why are you dressed like clueless victim number three on Buffy the Vampire Slayer?"

Murphy tosses one of the nuts at her face, which she catches expertly and chucks back at his eyeball. It hits him in the brow bone before he plucks it out of his lap and eats it with a glare directed his date’s way. "Just admit you think I look cute, Reyes."

Raven scoffs, offended at the implication. "My vagina has never clamped up so fast as when I saw you walking over here.”

“Bringing up your vagina three minutes into a date, knew you were a classy gal.”

“If I had class I wouldn’t be here.”

“Can we circle back to your vagina?”

Clarke just blinks at them, wondering what kind of social experiment she’s been dragged into, and at this point too shell-shocked to interfere in any way whatsoever.

"So," Bellamy starts, uncharastically quiet up until this point but obviously not in the mood to be talking about his friend’s vagina, already having chugged back half of his beer by now. "It’s your turn, Murphy."

He mutters something under his breath as he pushes himself up by leveraging his weight against the sticky table. And Raven smirks, victorious for some reason, her long hair shining in different colored hues thanks to the disco lights above their head. She never wears her hair down though, so Clarke knows she at least is semi-into the guy.

"So Clarke," Raven starts dryly, dragging the attention away from her date who is still deciding between a hot pink medium weight and a yellow childrens ball. "I didn’t know you and Murphy were friends."

"We're not," she grits. Logically she knew it was going to come up, but she still hoped it wouldn’t. It’s hard to explain this thing between her and Murphy without making it sound non-consensual and illegal. It’s not. It’s just a weird, personal thing.

Bellamy snorts, gaze fixed ahead on Murphy and she glares over at him, lifting the straw inside her glass to her mouth. "I  _ obviously _ came for the charming company." So much for doing better, but he brings out the worst in her. 

"Glad you lowered your standards to waste away your Friday night by slumming it with us lowlings," Bellamy deadpans, one elbow resting on the back of the booth, glancing over at her. It’s the first time he’s spoken a full sentence directly to her in months and it’s a lot. 

First of all, his voice should be illegal for multiple reasons. Second of all, it couldn’t be more obvious he hates her, hates everything about her and even hates the things he has no business hating, doing it just out of spite. And third of all, that’s really ninety percent of the reason why she even hates  _ him.  _ She wanted to be friends and she guesses she did fuck that up in her haste to get her feelings under control. It’s just a lot, because she wishes it was different.

Clarke takes a deep breath through her nostrils, choosing to forgo her straw and take a large swig off her sprite to show that she in fact, again, is being the bigger person. She glances over at Murphy again, for once in her life desperate for him to come back. Just pick a fucking bowling ball already, how hard can it be?

"So what kind of dirt does he have on you?" Raven smirks, elbows on top of the table as she leans forward almost conspiratorially. Murphy finally decides on the Spongebob-themed ball.

Clarke groans, throwing her head back slightly. “is it that obvious?"

Bellamy huffs again, venomous. "Your friendships always come with a price, don't they, princess?"

Low blow, but she shouldn't have expected anything less from him. He’s dramatic, and petty, and really just the textbook example of a Leo. She always thought it was funny when it wasn’t directed at her.

It’s not so cute now. Fuck doing better, she decides, snarking, "You and me were never friends, Bellamy. Get over it already."

Their heated gazes meet, his jaw clenched painfully and her eyebrows furrowed together. Murphy returns, having knocked down a meager two kegs during his turn, holding up his hands with an amused grin, "The girls are fighting?"

"Shut up," Bellamy and Clarke growl at the same time, causing Murphy’s eyebrows to slowly climb his forehead. Thankfully, he lets it go. “You’re up, Blake.”

"Don’t mind him, Clarke, he’s just being a grump," Raven offers her sympathetically, tipping her glass her way. 

"He’s being an  _ ass _ ," she exclaims, loud enough so she knows he hears it. Anger swirls through her system and she’s one comment away from asking that little pre-teen to hand her a shot of whatever has the highest percentage of alcohol in it.

The other girl twists her mouth to the side, expression souring. "You hurt his feelings, dude. He’s allowed to be an ass."

"Clarke doesn’t know what it’s like to have feelings," Murphy teases, half-hearted, jostling her with his elbow. She fakes half a smile, still too pissed off to really participate in any friendly ribbing.

Raven snorts, agreeing. "That’s true. She said she loved Finn and he was practically begging on his knees for her forgiveness and she didn’t even blink once."

"Being part of the 1% really hardens you," he muses, corners of his mouth turned up snarkily. Heat starts to travel up Clarke’s neck, heart throbbing dully. 

"Oh right, her daddy died and for the first time she experienced the inequitable ways of life. Death doesn't care what class you are," Raven adds next, mock-serious, and there’s an obvious joking lilt to her voice, throwing her hair back over her shoulders like she’s really getting into it now. 

She’s not being mean spirited, Clarke tells herself. Ha-ha, rich girl Clarke who has a heart made of ice.This is just a joke between friends. Picking at old trauma and making fun of it. But she and Raven aren't really friends, and it's not really old trauma.

Murphy just kind of does a nervous laugh as he glances over at her, picking at a hangnail as she hollowly laughs along. There’s a ringing in her ears, making everything sound distant and thinny, and her mouth feels like cotton.

Raven doesn’t seem to notice. She’s on a roll, putting on a voice as if she’s narrating a story and everything, "Having lived such a privileged, perfect life before, Clarke decided to shut herself down forever. If she had to feel a negative emotion once, she was going to make damn sure she never would feel anything again. Fuck anyone else’s feelings, right?"

"Uhm," Clarke stammers, not sure why she's sounding breathy. Looking down at her hands, one of her fingers is bleeding. 

"Ah fuck, Clarke it was just a joke," Raven blurts out suddenly, color drained from her face, and it’s then she realizes she’s crying.

"Clarke," Murphy starts, but it feels like she’s suffocating, like she can’t breathe and she needs to get away.

"Can you get out?" She just says, cheeks burning with humiliation as she refuses to look at either of them.

"I didn’t — " The other girl starts, almost panicked, but Clarke doesn’t want to hear it. This is already embarrassing enough and if this takes any longer she might actually have a mental fucking breakdown in the middle of a bowling alley.

"Just fucking move, Murphy," she yells, voice hoarse, shoving him aside until he finally relents.

Of course just as she maneuvers herself out of the booth, cheap plastic sticking to her thighs, she bumps right into Bellamy and his victorious smirk. "You're up, princess."

His face falls as he takes in her red eyes and the tears tracks down her cheeks, but before he can open his mouth and make fun of her some more, she's ducking underneath the arm of the hand resting on the back of the booth, making a beeline for the bathroom. She's positive that if she just locks herself in there for the rest of the night, it'll be enough of a hint for them to just leave without her. Then she’ll just avoid all of them until they magically forget this ever happened or she dies, whatever comes first.

The stalls are dirty, and the tampon machine's been forcefully broken in to, and it overwhelmingly smells like beer and urine in there, but she just presses herself against the sharpie-clad wall and reminds herself to breathe.

Her mind races and races, and her dress is sticking to her back from the sweat, and her lungs ache, despite each shakey inhale providing more than enough air to soothe them over. She hugs herself, screwing her eyes shut briefly before forcing them open.

A discarded roll of toilet paper. A pad wrapper on the floor. A half-broken toilet seat. The telephone number scratched into the wall. Those stupid bowling shoes on her feet.

The distant flushing of a toilet in the men's room. The low steady beat of a Black Eyed Peas song outside. The slow taps of a dripping faucet. Her steady breaths, in through the nose, out through the mouth.

The cold, tile walls against her back. The rough fabric of her skirt. The soft, expensive material of her sweater.

The sharp sting of bleach. The ammoniac stench of urine.

Sprite mixed with something salty, as she licks her lips.

Another deep breath, and she feels her heart rate has significantly slowed down. Her hands still tremble, and she doesn't think the tears have stopped, but she's doing better.

There's a knock on the stall, startling her. A beat of hesitation, and then, "Clarke?"

Of course it’s him. She closes her eyes, more hot tears sliding down her cheeks. "Just go away."

"You know that’s not gonna happen,” he replies, firmly, voice commanding and leaving no room for argument.

Defeated, she throws her head back with a loud thud, causing her to wince. She opens the door to get this over with, because she knows he’s serious. He’ll stand out there all night if he has to, because that’s who he is. He gets to take one three-second look at her hot mess appearance before she’s pushing past him, shoving her wrists under a cool stream of water by the sink.

"Did you do the 5-4-3-2-1 thing?" He wonders, quietly, and she knows he looks angry to cover up how concerned he really is. 

It’s even more fucking embarrassing because he’s seen her like this before, is the only one who’s seen her like this before, really, and this just goes to show that she’s coping even worse than she did before. 

"Yeah," she sniffs, reluctant, not looking up from the faucet.

"Good,” he answers awkwardly, as he leans back against the counter beside her and there’s a flex in his jaw. 

It’s just too much. Being near him, having him be civil with her. It was easier, when they were fighting. She doesn’t want him checking up on her.

"Just go back to them, I’m okay. Seriously,” she insists, forcing a smile on her face as she meets his gaze in the mirror before yanking a paper towel from the dispenser beside her to dab at her eyes, before it can waver too much. She throws in half a joke, hoping it’ll be enough to convince him, “Go back before they end up killing each other."

"Raven will definitely get to him first and I'd rather not serve twenty to life as her accomplice. The less details I know the better." 

The corner of his mouth turns up in one of those half-grins that used to drive her crazy, but it’s not the same when it doesn’t reach his eyes and it all just feels like an olive branch she doesn’t deserve.

"Bellamy,” she says again, this time more stern, brows furrowing together, although her voice breaks on the next sentence, crumpling the paper towel in between her fingers, "Just go. Please."

The knuckles wrapped around the counter turn white and he fixes his gaze on his feet. "You know, what you did to me was wrong."

She roughly tosses the paper towel in the nearest trash can, although it falls to the floor beside it. "Seriously Bellamy? Read the fucking room," Clarke spits, rubbing the heels of her hands over her face, not really in the mood for an argument right now. 

He smirks, just a little, but it remains sad around the edges, and he continues on like he hasn’t even heard her, "But it’s not in me to be mad at you any longer. I try, but then one look at your face and it’s over again." He flinches lightly, lifting his shoulders lazily before turning his head to look at her fully. "I mean that's why I was overcompensating so badly out there."

"Nothing you said was a lie," she counters, honestly, tongue darting out to wet her lips. He might have a rather harsh way of telling her, but that’s just because he’s hurt, and when he’s hurt he lashes out. It’s not like she doesn’t deserve it. “And I don’t want you to forgive me just because you feel sorry for me.”

He shakes his head, face hard as if physically revolting against every word she’s saying. "You didn't use me, Clarke. I thought that you did, and it made me angry for so long, and the truth of the matter is you could have broken my heart with a little more tact, but it didn't mean we were never really friends.” She watches his adam’s apple bob up and down slowly. “And I know you could’ve used one of those.”

There’s a stinging ache right in the middle of her chest, an unbearable sadness washing over her, and she knows he’s right. Quietly, she presses, "I was always honest with you, Bellamy."

"I know," he admits, rough. One of his hands lets off the counter, coming up to pinch the bridge of his nose. "You said you weren't ready and I kept pushing. Having you in even the smallest of ways  —  it made me greedy, and selfish.” He meets her eye, dark brown eyes stupidly sincere and painfully so. “And I’m sorry."

"Don’t apologize,” she replies, heatedly. It’s true. Whenever someone gets too close, she bails, no matter the circumstances. He deserved better than that. Most of the fight leaves her, eyes stinging with fresh tears, and she doesn’t really know if it’s for him or her, but she adds, “You're right. I use people to get what I want, and when they figure it out I run. I’m selfish."

It’s right there, and the longer she looks at it, the clearer it becomes. She uses her mom for money, and she used Wells to get rid of her misplaced rage, and Finn to feel wanted, and Lexa to validate her own self-destructive tendencies, and she used Bellamy for physical comfort. She uses people. 

He slants his head a little to the side, as if in disbelief with her. "You don't believe that."

She shrugs, and then her bottom lip starts trembling and he’s wrapping her in his arms, her sob muffled by his shoulder. "Raven is really bad with nerves," he explains softly, murmuring into her hair while his hand moves soothingly down her back. 

"It’s not her,” Clarke cries lamely, pulling back to look at him. She wants to stay in his arms, safe and warm, but the longer she lets herself, the more dangerous it becomes. She wipes at her tears with the sides of her pointer-fingers, sniffing. “It’s just been a shitty month. My midterms came back crap, I had to pawn my dad’s watch to get my car fixed, and this Wednesday I got my first text in two weeks and it was from Murphy." She cries and laughs at the same time, shaking her head, but her entire body is actually trembling so he pulls her back against him, " _ Murphy _ .”

He winces, and she feels it more than she sees it, face still crushed against his chest. “Seems like you’ve hit rock bottom."

She inhales sharply, relishing in his scent —  laundry detergent and the same cheap cologne he’s probably worn since puberty  —  fingers clutching his shirt tightly. "That’s what I think every time, and then life hands me a shovel and tells me to start digging."

Bellamy pulls away, and she almost makes a sound of protest. Clarke really does feel better though, which kind of takes away the purpose of a hug. His mouth twists to the side in a sympathetic smile, “You and your mom still not talking?"

"No, she cut me off,” Clarke reveals, taking the paper towel he offers her to wipe at her face again. She’s afraid to look at the mirror, doesn’t want to know what she’ll find staring back at her. Her eyes probably puffy and red, makeup smudged everywhere. "I got a job at a pretzel stand in the mall."

She can tell he’s stifling a laugh, and it makes her smile, biting down on her lip to keep from laughing like a delirious person herself. “You really switched out your crown for a visor cap, huh?”

“Ass,” she mutters, but she’s laughing and she feels lighter and stupidly, it makes her fall back into his arms. “It’s a vendor hat, and I look cute in it.”

“We are going to need photographic evidence,” he jokes, and then he squeezes her, arms tight around her. She really doesn’t want to let go, but she knows she probably should. It’s not just that she hasn’t had a real hug in so long, it’s that it’s  _ him _ who’s hugging her. 

Her forehead lolls over his clavicle, enough to the side so she can look up at him. "I miss you."

He ducks his head and kisses her forehead, tightening his arms around her, but he doesn’t say anything, and that’s okay. Clarke has learned to be more honest with herself and her own feelings and it doesn’t mean he has to feel the same way. “I tried really hard to pretend tonight that I didn’t, and that I don't care, but I do."

Bellamy steps back, still rubbing her arms, probably unconsciously as he seems to be at war with himself. "Clarke — " He starts, eyes pleading. "I should apologize too. For being an ass for no reason."

"It wasn’t no reason,” she corrects him, and then finds herself grinning softly, "but thanks."

He raises his eyebrows, his hands dropping back down as he tries to keep from smirking at her all smugly. "I haven't even said the words yet."

She rolls her eyes, "You don’t have to.”

The smirk dims, and then it’s just the hint of a grin as he swallows tightly. "Why did you?" He averts his eyes for a second before looking back at her. "Leave without saying anything? You changed your number, I couldn't even be mad at you."

"Because," she starts, exasperated, then bites down on her lip, shaking her head slightly. There’s a thousand reasons why, and the most important one is that when he’s standing right in front of her, none of them seem to matter. She exhales through her nose in frustration. "Because I couldn’t look you in the eye and tell you it was over. Because I’m a coward."

"I would’ve survived you breaking off the sex, Clarke. That was always just a bonus," he admits genuinely, a hint of anger laced with his voice, and her heart threatens to beat it’s way out of her chest at the admission, not understanding how he doesn’t  _ get  _ it. He hesitates, and then his eyes soften, "I barely survived losing my friend."

"It was just sex, though," she challenges, not sure why. Maybe she just needs the confirmation. "Not for you.”

"No, but that was all on me,” he insists, all-too-willingly. “You told me you didn't want a relationship, that you weren't in the right headspace after Finn, and then Lexa, and I thought I could handle friends with benefits.”

"Welcome to the club,” she snorts, bringing up a hand to wipe back a strand of hair from eyes and it’s only when he sends her a weird look that she realizes what she’s said.

Clarke inhales shakily, licking her lips. Maybe she should just tell him. Maybe she owes him that, for the way she left. He deserves to know he’s loved. That it wasn’t him, or it was, but that’s all  _ her _ . “It’s why I couldn’t look you in the eye and tell you I was leaving, Bellamy. iI I didn’t get on the plane, if I saw you one more time  — I would’ve stayed." And she couldn’t stay. She can’t look at him now either, fiddling with the hem of her sweater nervously. "I couldn’t. You're — you were perfect but I needed distance. And time, to work through my own shit. And i'd hoped you would understand, but then I came back and you — "

"Were a dick?" He fills in, face scrunched up. 

"Amongst other things,” she admits, breaking out in a smile. It’s much more complicated than that, because he was a dick for a reason, and she shouldn’t have expected to be allowed to come back and fall in his arms after leaving like that, and there were a bunch of factors at play that have now brought them here at this point, but for the first time, she feels like they can move past it. 

He returns it, soft and special and she really fucking misses him. "Clarke it’s okay, you know? If you didn't feel the same. I would just like to have my friend back."

"I’m not lying to protect your feelings, Bellamy,” she says, dry, scrunching up her nose at the memory. “One morning I woke up beside you in your shitty apartment and I realized that i liked you a little too much for it to be platonic and I had a panic attack in your bathroom. "

His brows furrow together and her fingers itch to smooth it out. "When was this?"

"That day of The Aces concert." 

She dragged him there when Roan bailed on her last second in favor of hooking up with his fuckbuddy, so Clarke automatically went to hers. Bellamy pretended to hate it the entire way there after finding out he was just a replacement for Roan, but then she sucked him off in the bathroom promising she wouldn’t have done  _ that _ with Roan and he didn’t stop smiling after. He ended up buying them matching merch t-shirts and she still has both of them because she used to love stealing his shirts. 

"You stayed for breakfast. I didn’t even notice anything was up.” He looks at her all pensively, and she thinks he might actually be upset now.

"Don’t worry. I’m great at compartmentalizing," she promises, shrugging lazily as she looks at him, a little pleading. She doesn’t want him to feel bad about not noticing her mental despair when she’s made it her life mission to hide it from everyone. “And a shower does wonders."

Her gaze must be pleasing enough, because she can see the tension drain from his shoulders and he stifles a smirk, squinting at her slightly. "Weren't you doing your whole depressive, one shower a week thing back then?"

Clarke narrows her eyes. "Shut up.”

His smirk, no longer hiding, grows. "Seriously, you smelled. All the time."

"Seriously," she echoes, a little threateningly although she knows he’s just teasing. “Shut up."

He pretends he doesn’t hear her, going on in the same teasing manner, ¨”I think at one point you even had dreads, too."

A huff gets caught in the back of her throat, and she glares at him. "If we're going to bring up each other's worst mistakes, let's talk you and your hairgel addiction during that entire first month we knew each other."

She met him at a frat party his sister dragged him to on her birthday. She and Octavia were barely acquaintances, but he noticed her and Clarke _ definitely _ noticed him, and they got into their first argument by the cooler in the kitchen. It was about beer. Twenty minutes later, and he was inside her in the coat closet. Mentally, Clarke was kind of spiralling after two people she loved betraying her, but Bellamy had a weird way of grounding her by seeing right through her bullshit and calling her on it. They bumped into each other at the grocery store not even a week later, and hooked up in the back of his car. It seemed easier to just exchange numbers at that point, so they did. It wasn't just sex then, but they started hanging out, too. She'd binge watch entire shows on his crappy couch with a jar of ice cream. He'd come to the library to quiz her, only to end up getting lost in the history section. They became friends, good friends, great friends. She could tell him anything, but usually didn't even have to say a word. and although she kept telling him she wasn't ready for a relationship, it was hard to deny they were kinda, sorta, in one. Once she figured that out, she freaked, and she ran. She'd signed up for a semester abroad next term and decided to leave early, explore some of the country beforehand.

When she came back, it was hard to avoid him. Arkadia wasn't a small town, but it wasn't big either. He hung out at the same places at her, they shared the same gym, shopped at the same target. It was like he was everywhere, and everywhere he was and she was, the day was destined to end with bloodshed. He was angry with her, and she deserved it. She felt righteous about it for a while, justified leaving him like that as him being better off without her, kept telling herself he would be fine, better even without her and her issues weighing him down, but the longer she was away, the more she realized she hadn't been fair to him. And if the six-page long email Octavia sent her a month into her semester that Clarke blinked at for ten long seconds before deleting forever was any indication, he wasn't as fine as she'd thought. Sometimes it still flashed in front of her eyes, the simple ‘Clarke’. No ‘dear’, not even a ‘hello’ or a ‘hi’, just ‘Clarke’. She couldn’t read it, couldn’t actually know how he was doing unless she wanted to lose it again. She had to believe he was fine without her, that he wasn’t worse because of her. That she ruined another person she loved.

“Let’s not,” he deadpans, suddenly not so smirkey anymore.

“Why not?” She taunts. “I have so many pictures we could look at, I could whip together a dramatic iPhone gallery edit, make a night out of it.”

He’s smiling, and her heart nearly bursts with how much she’s missed him. So suddenly, she’s kissing him, hard, and she gets so lost in feeling him again that she doesn’t notice for a a few seconds. He isn’t kissing her back. She reels back, fingers covering her mouth as she stares up at him in horror, cheeks burning hot. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that.”

“It’s okay,” he says quickly, still looking a little dazed. “It's just —”

“You have a girlfriend,” she cuts in, taking another step back from him. She’s  _ sooooo _ fucking stupid. It’s been over a year. What did she think was going to happen? If she sounds a little frantic, it’s because she is, “I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to.”

“You didn’t  _ mean  _ to kiss me?” He repeats, eyebrow hiked as he blinks at her, face suddenly blank of any emotion. He’s seeing right through her and it’s fucking embarrassing. How do you accidentally kiss someone?

“My mouth slipped.” She winces at her own stupid joke.

He looks unimpressed. “I don’t have a girlfriend, Clarke, but — ”

“Boyfriend?” She offers next, checking to see if she can still get him to smile. And she’s stalling. Badly. She doesn’t want to hear it. 

He does, shaking his head lightly. “One of these days Miller will give in, I’m sure.” 

“He can't fight faith forever.”

His smile widens, and then it fades completely, his expression sobering as he inhales deeply. “I can't do what we did last time. i can be your friend, or i can be more than that, but I can’t be anything in between. The last time — ”

She pushes herself up on her tiptoes and kisses him, chaste and dry. “I can’t promise I’ll be perfect at being a girlfriend, but I’m willing to try.” 

It’s not like six months in Europe fixed her. She’s still got her baggage, it’s why they’re currently having this conversation in a bowling hall bathroom, but she can try and stick around, even when it gets tough. She can try for him. Wants to. 

Bellamy leans down to kiss her again, a long, hard press of his mouth against hers. “I’ll gladly be your guinea pig,” he says, dry, tucking her hair behind her ear and she buries herself back into his arms for a moment.

“If we survive this night without any murder charges, would you like to  — come over to my dorm?” Quickly, before he gets any ideas, which she can already see are starting to form with the look on his face, she clarifies, “Talk it over?” 

Her roommate Gaia is visiting her mom this weekend and she’d rather not have Octavia accidentally listening in on their conversation. Besides, she’s not ready to face her either. It might end up in bloodshed.

“That seems like a good idea, yeah,” he agrees, voice a soft rumble in his chest and she hugs him closer. Her laugh is muffled by his chest as she finds herself wondering what their friends are getting up to unsupervised. 

“You know, Murphy wanted me to come so he could prove to Raven there were two people who hated each other more than they do.”

He presses a kiss to the crown of her head. “Maybe there’s hope for them yet.”

***

Raven spots her over Murphy’s shoulder first, from where she’s teaching him how to aim a bowling ball correctly, like it’s hard. Maybe he does have game. She straightens immediately and shoves Murphy aside, quickly telling her, as if rehearsed in her head, "Sorry. I was nervous. Nerves make me a bitch.”

Raven’s not usually one to apologize, so Clarke takes it. "It’s okay, I was being sensitive.”

She eyes Bellamy's arm around her shoulder with slightly narrowed eyes, but to her credit ducks her head and says nothing, pressing her lips together in a tight line. “Me and Murphy kept playing, so it’s anyone's turn really.”

“I’ll go,” Clarke pipes up, eyes darting between everyone curiously as she steps out of Bellamy's hold. There’s a weird tension in the air that for once isn't the byproduct of her. Not directly at least.

She knocks down a meager eights pegs within two tries, making her way back to the table. The drinks have been replaced with a pitcher of beer. Clarke must eye it warily because Murphy quips, with a waggle of his eyebrows, “It’s from my private collection.”

“Is it that bad?” Clarke winces, not really sure what happened that warrants what is essentially just absinthe spiked beer, but at least no one seems to be actively bleeding.

Murphy knocks his arm into hers, a knowing look on his face, which is stupid because he doesn’t know jackshit. “Considering you and Blake possibly got down to third base in the bathroom, I need to make up fast.”

“It’s your turn, Murphy,” Raven grits, her jaw clenched in a way that must be painful. 

Clarke rolls her lips together and averts her gaze to the table. Bellamy finds her hand under the table, and she lets him intertwine their fingers.

Murphy nudges over at the scoreboard with a jut of his chin and his eyes narrowed. “It’s obviously Blake’s.” He winches, reaching for his shin. “What the fuck?”

“It’s your turn, Murphy,” she repeats, venomously, and he reluctantly gets up. “I’ll help,” she announces, not at all subtly. Clarke watches them argue all the way over to the lane.

“So Raven’s not on board with us being on speaking terms I take it?” Clarke muses, giving Bellamy an unimpressed look. He lets out a huff, looking uncomfortable. 

“She's just trying to look out for me.”

“Understandable”

Bellamy rolls his eyes, sagging back against the booth. “I can look out for myself, you know.” His mouth twists to the side, nostrils flaring slightly. “I’m not some powerless, weak, little pushover who’ll do anything as long Clarke Griffin blinks her eyes at me.”

It’s kind of cute, how upset he is with people being worried about him. Annoying, but cute.

“I  _ know _ you’re not a pushover,” she agrees, raises her eyebrows, slow and suggestive, lifting their hands to her lap and squeezing softly.

Bellamy licks his lips, trying to keep from grinning as he pinches her side with his free hand. “Can we talk first? Before we jump straight into foreplay?”

She yelps lightly, and then they both laugh a little until they’re just grinning at each other stupidly. Hers dims, and she sighs tiredly, “Can we do it after though? I don’t want to risk Murphy overhearing.” 

She’ll never live it down. She can imagine the string of memes already and the guy doesn’t even have a smartphone. He’ll tag her on Facebook, for everyone to see.

“You know he was actually defending you to her?” Bellamy cocks an eyebrow. “I thought you said you weren’t friends.”

She uses the hand still in his to poke him in the ribs teasingly. “Are you jealous?”

“Of John Murphy?” Bellamy prompts skeptically, like the words are sour in his mouth, and he’s obviously insulted on many levels. “Do I have to be?”

“He would never go for me,” she declares, and the dumbfounded look he gives her makes her burst out in laughter. Bellamy shakes his head, probably trying to clear it from any visuals he might be having, and it’s obvious they’re done with conversation. 

They both turn to look at the guy in question, currently leaning back against the bowler so him and Raven are at the same height. Murphy reaches out to brush her hair away, but she swats his hand away. Although she squeezes his fingers, brief, before they fall away completely. 

“Huh,” Clarke says, leaning into Bellamy’s side as she squints at the two of them. That’s interesting.

He lowers his mouth to her ear, breath hot against her skin, “I’m just saying if we get out of here now, we can still make a case for plausible deniability.”

She and Murphy never discussed the time duration of their arrangement, and the purpose of her being here has been long defeated anyway. He’s now arguing with Raven in a low voice, both of them snarling and rolling their eyes at each other, but three of her fingers are wrapped around his pinky the entire time, and Clarke thinks she has more than fulfilled her duty as a woman blackmailed into winging. 

“Lead the way.”

***  
  
  


Murphy  
  
**October 3rd 2019** 10:15 PM  
Today I will be waiting until 11:11 to wish all the best for you, stranger, because you deserve happiness and I am rooting for all your wishes to come true! ❁  


**May 13** 3:05 AM  
arkaydia street 39, 1.30 pm may 13  
Ominous  
**May 16** 10:39 PM  
ure a threaterous skank and i thank u humbly  
Third base?  
**Read** 10:48 PM

***  
  
  



	2. you drive me crazy half the time; the other half i'm only tryna let you know that what i feel is true

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy loves holding grudges. When Octavia still lived with him she left her dirty laundry all over the apartment, so for her birthday he sponsored a wild pig at the local zoo and named it after her. First, middle and last. One time, Roan stole his lunch from the communal fridge. Naturally, the next day Bellamy made him fish tacos with cat food. When Raven said his beard wasn’t his ‘best look’, he didn't speak to her for a month and a half. 
> 
> It’s why Clarke can't for the life of her figure out why he lets her get away with everything.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from anon: clarke is frustrated bellamy cant stay mad at her + sexy times

Bellamy loves holding grudges. When Octavia still lived with him she left her dirty laundry all over the apartment, so for her birthday he sponsored a wild pig at the local zoo and named it after her. First, middle  _ and _ last. One time, Roan stole his lunch from the communal fridge. Naturally, the next day Bellamy made him fish tacos with cat food. When Raven said his beard wasn’t his ‘best look’, he didn't speak to her for a month and a half. 

It’s why Clarke can't for the life of her figure out why he lets her get away with everything.

Clarke’s a pretty self-aware person, usually, which makes her kind of ashamed to admit she doesn't even realize it until someone else points it out during a conversation she’s technically not even part of.

"Bellamy," Miller groans, pulling up the collar of his shirt so it’s covering his nose, shoving his friend away with his free hand, "tell Murphy he smells like shit."

"Bellamy," Murphy imitates his tone, vindictive snarl forming on his face, "Tell Miller that he should wash his mouth after rimming out his boyfriend so he can stop blaming me for his own lack of personal hygiene."

The guy in question doesn't even take his eyes off whatever shooting game they're playing now, elbows leaning on his knees and sounding tired. "Hey, stop involving me. Completely bipartisan here."

Miller drops his shirt, crossing his arms over his chest instead as he glares at the greasy-haired guy on his right, mocking him, "Did Emori finally realize her worth and kick you out again? Are you homeless, John? Do you no longer own a shower?"

"You play favorites all the time," Murphy cuts in, narrowing his eyes at the side of Bellamy’s face, obviously trying to distract from the topic at hand, which is himself. It’s one of his specialities. 

Bellamy just rolls his eyes, leaning a bit to the left as he tries to take down one of the serial killing zombie cars (?) on the screen. "Fuck off."

The controller in his hand goes still, shoulders stiffening regardless of him trying to play it cool, but Murphy doesn’t cave, of course, keeps the same deadpan tone to his voice as he presses, "Sure, that’s why you’d let Clarke get off for murdering your sister."

It’s not like Clarke was actively listening, but the mention of her name definitely keeps her ears perked, curious to see what hilarious direction this conversation might take. Glaringly obvious subject change? Unwarranted and unnecessary roast of one Clarke Griffin? Throwing his controller at Murphy’s face? All valid options. 

"I wouldn’t,” he replies, easily, gritting through his teeth as he slides to the edge of the couch, obviously way too invested in his fake virtual mission as the low music coming from the television speeds up significantly. “Now shut up.”

Clarke snorts quietly from where's she's working at the kitchen table, shaking her head at the half-finished digital drawing currently on her screen, because she completely agrees. They fight all the time. They fight about incredibly stupid shit. Like, where she leaves her dirty underwear, or how he hangs the toilet paper. Groceries, Netflix, the thermostat. God,  _ money _ . Money, all the time. He yells, she yells back. It’s their thing. It’s  _ been _ their thing since the very start.

"Yeah, you would," Miller suddenly pipes up, pushing himself up straighter, obviously happy with the opportunity to shit talk any of his friends, not particularly picky when it comes to the unfortunate subject of the previously mentioned shit talking. A smug grin slowly starts to appear on his face, "You allow her to use your Rover.” He lets that dramatically hang in the air for a second, watching Bellamy’s jaw tighten with more satisfaction than it should before he adds, “You  _ hate _ other people using your Rover.”

“Shut up,” he mutters, half-hearted, fingers moving quickly over the buttons on his controller. Clarke tries to re-focus on her work, but now that they’re  _ actually _ talking about her and she’s no longer a throwaway line she doesn’t think it’s so weird for her to see how it ends. They’re guys. It can’t be more than thirty seconds before some inevitably makes a fart joke and they move on to a different subject. It’s not like they don’t know she’s there.

Miller raises his eyebrows, as if unimpressed. “You’ve had that car since high school. You once called it your one epic love story.” Bellamy doesn’t react except for a hiss directed at the game, obviously deadset on ignoring him, so he keeps going, “During sophomore year if I even so much as looked at that car, you'd start frothing at the mouth."

Bellamy barely even defends himself, as if having deemed the conversation unworthy from even doing so, keeping his eyes fixated on the television and his shoulders eerily tense, instead sulks, almost a little petulantly, "I did not froth."

"Visible foam, dude,” his best and oldest friend concludes, self-satisfied, and it’s almost eery to see him smile for such a long time. With teeth. Clarke blinks a few times, then forcefully redirects her gaze to her laptop.

“Yeah, yeah,” Bellamy curses, making a move as if he’s about to stand up, his voice turning urgent as his thumbs move over the controller rapidly, "Somebody get that fucking sniper on the left already."

The conversation is pretty much over after that and at first, Clarke doesn't really think much of it. It's just bro talk, they probably didn't even realize she could overhear, they were roasting him in any way they could, maybe all of the above. But when she inconspicuously brings it up during dinner later that night, he brushes it off. And Bellamy is never nothing but eager to discuss his personal feelings, sometimes even against here emotionally-constipated will. 

Clarke finishes chewing a mouthful of the leftovers he heated up for them before cutting him off mid-sentence, three minutes deep into a rant about one of his students, curiosity having gotten the best of her at this point, "You really hate me using your car?"

Bellamy looks more surprised than anything else. She doesn’t really know what she expected, but it definitely wasn’t the tips of his ears turning red. "You heard that?"

Clarke gives him a strange look, forehead wrinkling with confusion as she wipes her mouth with her sleeve. "Of course I heard that, I was ten feet away from you."

He lifts one of his shoulders lazily, pushing the noodles on his plate around with his fork without any real reason. "You usually get so in the zone when you're working, didn't think you'd be listening."

She just blinks at him with her brow furrowed, trying to make sense of the blank expression on his face. "Does it matter?"

No eye-contact, just stiff shoulders. "What?"

Her nostrils flare just slightly, annoyed at him for playing dumb. "That I overheard."

Bellamy takes a bite of his food, chewing slowly before finally giving her an answer. "I guess not."

"So,” Clarke starts, crossing her arms over her chest with a pointed arch of her eyebrow. She’s not going to drop it just like that. She might have, if he wasn’t acting so twitchy. “The Rover?"

He cringes, then sighs, resigning to the fact she won’t give up until she gets an answer. They both know Clarke Griffin doesn’t break. “You’re not very good at riding stick.” 

Her mouth drops open, and she’s about to go to bat and defend her honor, but he beats her to it, waving her off, "It's fine, Clarke, honestly. It’s been ages since I’ve cared about the state of my gearbox.” At the dumbfounded look on her face he ducks his head a little, rubbing the back of his neck as he puts down his fork. “Back then  —” He pauses, shaking his head at the memory, curls bouncing with the movement. “ I just didn't want Miller anywhere near my car. I mean, at that point he was badly overcompensating and walked around in the same American Pie shirt for weeks on an end.” He scrunches up his face at the memory, “He stank."

Clarke purses her lips, feeling weirdly defensive of Miller’s aggressively straight fashion choices. She, too, once upon a time avoided wearing thumb rings and flannels for the entirety of her pre-teens in fear of being outed. Fucking stereotypes and internalized homophobia. "I thought Murphy stank."

Bellamy groans, throwing his head back as he massages his temple as if trying to fend off an oncoming headache. He should play less video games. Or at least wear his glasses when he does. "God, fuck. He does. We seriously need to stage an intervention. Emori can't just make a decision by herself and let  _ us _ suffer the consequences."

Clarke laughs, because fuck,  _ yeah _ , Emori was totally selfish for kicking Murphy to the curb for the third time this month without even notifying them about stowing away all their pre-packaged foods. They manage binge half a season of Brooklyn Nine-Nine on the couch before falling asleep on top of each other. And she thinks that's it. He lets her use his car every now and then because she’s his friend and it has it’s death date looming over it from the not-so-distant future anyway. 

She let him use her razor once, when they were on an overnight trip and he accidentally left half his bag at home. It was kind of weird to see him use a baby pink Gillette on his face, but she would do anything in her power to never let that thing he called a beard return. She feels like it’s her civic duty as his friend and a human with eyes. It’s a give and take kind of thing. 

But, then it keeps gnawing at her because,  _ sometimes _ , every now and then, Clarke has trouble letting things go.

It’s been over two years since Clarke first became Bellamy’s roommate over a random accumulation of events. His sister wanted to travel the world. Clarke and her mom needed some distance in order to still be able to have a civil conversation without airing every little resentment they had built up over the years in the most explosive way possible. Clarke’s old leech of a group partner from Spanish class she hadn’t seen in years, who happened to be Octavia, shared his post looking for a roommate onto her timeline. The space was small but cheap and close to the hospital she worked at, so she messaged him and hasn’t looked back since.

Yeah, they fought a lot, and at one point Clarke thought they’d never stop, but it was fun, too. Challenging. He didn’t back down just because she was rich, or a girl, or had an influential mom, or was conveniently attractive and he’d like to get into her pants. With time, most of the heat left their arguments and they became actual friends who just liked poking fun of each other. Maybe even best friends. They’re not really at an age people still make that distinction she thinks, but it feels like that a lot of the time. 

Technically, Clarke knows there’s a list. And she didn’t per se think the Rover wasn’t on that list, but she didn’t ever actively stop to think and consider it. There’s just certain things that are sacred to the man, and other people usually  _ know _ not to touch those things most of the time. Octavia, his hair (no matter where on his body, apparently), the kids in his class, his food, history documentaries, his friends, Shania Twain, and yeah, probably that stupid old car he’s had since high school and somehow still has a nickname for.

Clarke spits out her toothpaste, staring Bellamy down in the mirror. She doesn’t know why it’s bugging her so badly, but she can’t physically seem to move past it. “Why is it that you let me use your car?”

“Didn’t we already have this conversation?” He says, words garbled because his mouth is still currently occupied by his toothbrush.

She’s been thinking about it. He hates people being late, but Clarke is notoriously known for getting lost in her paintings and thus chronically making him one of those very people. He’s the king of gym selfies, but hates having his picture taking, yet always dutifully poses for Clarke and her loyal instagram followers when she wants to document whatever sculpture or painting they went see at some museum. Despises slow walkers, but always stays at her side no matter how far she falls behind. Always preaches about how headphones were invented for a reason, but never, ever complains when she’s badly singing along to Abba. He’s vocal every chance he gets about how he thinks coffee shouldn’t cost more than two bucks, but always without question gets her one of those fancy ones that's technically more whip cream than coffee whenever they go out. Clarke doesn’t think of herself as dense, doesn’t even think she’s particularly clueless, but can’t shake the feeling she’s missing something obvious here. 

She holds her hair aside as she lowers her mouth to the faucet, “I won’t be able to sleep if you don’t tell me.” It would’ve even sounded threateningly, 

He doesn’t say anything, follows her lead and takes a sip of the water, spitting it back out before cleaning his toothbrush and turning the faucet off. She watches him carefully, but nothing gives away what he’s really thinking. She never doesn’t know what he’s thinking. It’s frustrating. 

Clarke leans back against the counter, crossing her arms over her chest as her lips purse into an aggravated pout. She’s completely passed the point of caring about whether or not she sounds like a brat. “Seriously, I want to know.”

Bellamy takes his sweet time drying his mouth with his towel before he lifts a shoulder all non-committedly. For a moment, she thinks he might get mad and tell her to drop it, but then his jaw flexes and he quietly grumbles, “Because I can’t stay mad at you.”

Despite the tone of the conversation, she can’t help the shit-eating teasing grin from forming on her lips. “Why? Is it my lovely face?”

He smiles, her favorite smile in the world, but it fades a little at the edges. “Because — ”

Clarke’s completely back to just being annoyed at his reluctance to share whatever it is that he’s hiding from her. They have never hidden anything from each other. Not their initial hatred for each other, not her PMS-inflicted mood swings, not even that mistaken drunk hook-up he had with his sister’s nemesis. She can’t possibly imagine what’s different about this. “Because  _ what _ ? Just spit it out already.”

His nostrils flare, and he swivels around to face her quickly, as if about to yell at her, before he’s already turning back, and he’s just standing there, knuckles white and eyebrows furrowing and mouth opening and closing soundlessly a few times before he finally just blurts out, “Because I love you.”

She reels back, just a little, because they’ve definitely dropped an ‘ _ ILY dumbass _ ’ over text before, and maybe even written it down on a birthday card every once in a while, but they’re not the kind of people who just throw it around like that. Still, it’s true. _ Of course _ it’s true. “I love you too, but that doesn’t mean I won’t be mad at you if you use my sketchbook as a grocery list.”

It takes her an embarrassingly amount of silence on his part for it to dawn on her, blood draining from her face as she stares at the side of his face, hands balled into fists on top of the counter and eyes downcast at the last of the water quietly disappearing down the drain.

Her mouth feels dry, and it’s as if her entire back is suddenly coated in cold sweat, and it feels as if her body is entirely on high alert. The most overwhelming feeling that she’s able to decipher is disappointment. This, what he thinks means he loves her, it’s not what she wants. It makes her mad even, that that’s what he’d want for himself, that he doesn’t think he deserves something more than that. Clarke swallows, hard, wiping her palms on her pink sleeping shorts. “That’s not what love is, Bellamy. That’s dedication.”

He rolls his eyes, catching her gaze in the mirror. “Shut up. You always think you know better.”

Clarke raises her eyebrows, “I do, most of the time.”

Bellamy turns towards her this time, and despite the hardness written all over his face, he can’t hide the hurt in his eyes. Not from her. “Not when it comes to this. You can’t tell me how to feel, Clarke.”

This is going all wrong. She pushes herself off the counter, tries to take a step toward him, “I’m not. I’m just saying — ”

He’s turning away from her before she can get closer, waving her off, and she feels like her heart is about the pound it’s way out of her ribcage. She can’t let him walk away, if she does, she won’t be brave enough to bring this back up again. “Just forget it.”

Clarke tugs on his sleeve, and when that’s not enough lets her hand slide down his arm to grip his bicep, “Bellamy, just talk to me.”

He yanks his arm from her hold, but to his credit doesn’t try to leave the room again. Instead, he focuses his brown eyes on a point just below her chin, refusing to meet her eye. “I don’t want to talk, and just because you do, doesn’t mean we have to.”

He’s a fucking child. An actual fucking child. “Don’t do that. Don’t pretend like I’m some dictator — ”

Oh, he meets her gaze now, eyes blazing hot. “I’m not saying you’re a dictator, I’m saying you’re a bulldozer — ”

She tilts her head back, roughly, thinking he’s just sounding more ridiculous by the second. “A bulldozer?”

“Exactly,” he throws back, as if that’s suppose to mean anything to her. His fists are balled at his sides, and he’s closer now, looming over her in a way that would’ve been scary had she not seen this man cry over A Walk To Remember before. “You bulldoze over how everyone else feels because you think you’re right, and being right means more to you than — ”

This time Clarke is the one that rolls her eyes, using both hands to shove him away from her so she can plan her dramatic exit. She feels like storming out and getting the last word right about now. “That’s rich coming from  _ you _ , you never listen — ”

Bellamy throws up his hands, shaking his head to himself. “I didn’t even want to have this conversation, Clarke! But you kept pushing — ”

She can’t think straight anymore, a hundred emotions swirling through her system, and she should probably take a breath and analyze the obvious crack in his voice, but the easiest feeling to identify at the moment is definitely rage. Rage. Because he’s being a stubborn, unreasonable dumbass and it’s making her one too. “So what? I’m a pusher now, too?”

Bellamy’s teeth grit together as his eyes flick up to the ceiling briefly before he spits, venom in his voice, “You got what you wanted from me, now let it go — ”

She feels like she’s about to pass out, she’s _ that  _ mad. So she pushes him again, this time hoping to shove some sense into him. “I’m not going to let it go, you fucking asshole! I love you too!”

Her eyes widen at her own confession, and for some fucked up reason she feels significantly calmer  _ now _ , after and not before embarrassingly admitting to being desperately in love with her best friend maybe since she met him and he told her she could do whatever the hell she wanted as long as she paid her rent on time and wasted no time to make a dig at her mother’s fortune in the same sentence. He was an asshole, still is, and she loves him not despite, but because of it. He’s her guy. The one she can be herself with, and depend on, and wholeheartedly trust with her life, her deepest darkest thoughts and even her worst, disgusting post-twelve hours of sleep hungover and unshowered looks.

Bellamy doesn’t even really seem to notice —  _ his _ world still perfectly fine and spinning on its axis and not about to open up underneath his feet to swallow him whole  — cheeks still slightly red with exertion, tension still right there in his shoulders, and definitely still sounding severely unimpressed with her and this argument. “You said that already.”

If only he wasn’t so annoying. “And I’ll fucking say it again!” She yells, chest heaving, then forces herself to take in a calming breath. He seems to realize it now too, in hindsight, the severity of not so much her words but the meaning of them catching up with him, still catching up with him even as she repeats it, “I love you, Bellamy.” Her tongue darts out to wet her dry lips, and she tilts her head slightly to the side, eyes softening as all the fight leaves her body, voice trembling with it, “But it scares me that you let me get away with so much, regardless of your personal feelings. I don’t want for you  — I would hate —” She squeezes her eyes shut briefly, aggravated with her own sudden inability to speak. “I  _ want _ to be your equal. ”

“I don’t  _ let  _ you get away with anything,” Bellamy clarifies, shoulders sagging and he’s suddenly smiling, small but almost as if he’s endeared by her even implying such a thing. He lets out a frustrated sigh before he continues, eyes raking her face, “I just  —  none of that stuff, the car, or your ridiculous opinion on Jon Snow, or even the last chocolate chip cookie... None of that really matters when I look at you, you know?” There’s a stupidly dumb grin on his face, and she wants to punch and kiss him at the same time. “I’m just happy to be with you.”

Clarke violently ignores the way her entire body is shaking, how her face feels hot and her stomach is flipping. “So it _ is _ my dashingly attractive face?”

He lifts a shoulder lazily, but she can tell he’s nervous by the way he licks his lips before speaking. “More or less.”

She takes a step closer to him once again, clearing her throat as she looks up at him. “I like it when you yell at me.”

Bellamy’s grinning, annoyingly smug, and she definitely thinks she’s more leaning towards punching right now. “I figured.”

She pretends to, even reaches her hands up as if to strangle him, but they land on his broad shoulders instead, squeezing. Her eyes flick to his lips, which he definitely notices by the way his smirk widens, and then she forces them back up to his eyes, feeling like she should make a final plea now, while she still can, “I need you to promise me that you’ll tell me if you’re bothered by anything I do, or say, or — ”

His hands cover her waist, squeezing once to break her out of her own thoughts and focus her attention back on him before banding his arms around her to pull her closer. “I think we’ve established I’m not afraid of calling you out.”

“True,” she agrees, sliding her hands over his shoulders towards the back of his neck, fingers playing with the threadbare collar of his old college t-shirt. 

“Just because  — I’m not —” He exhales harshly through his nose, and Clarke laughs, soft joyous sound soon cut off by a sharp intake of breath as he brushes some hair from her face, fingertips grazing the shell of her ear as his eyes turn impossibly soft. “You’re my girl, you know?”

Her heart seems to flutter in her throat, warmth spreading all over her body, and she thinks she does. She loves him, but it’s more than that. He can’t stay mad at her, but it’s more than that. It’s devotion, but it’s also more than that. “I know.”

Bellamy leans just a little closer, and her lips start to tingle with the prospect. “Aren’t you going to say I have a dashingly attractive face too?”

Clarke can’t help but reach up with one of her thumb to press it into the little dip on his chin, trying and failing terribly at trying to hide her smirk. “I’m thinking I’d like to sit on it, sure.”

Her mouth is covered by his before she can even really linger in the smugness she feels at the stunned expression on his face, and it’s new and familiar at the same time, too much and not enough, his lips soft on hers, hands warm on her back. Minty, too. And it’s not until they’re both out of breath, mouths wet and pupils blown that he pulls back and promises, “That could definitely be arranged.”

“Better you than the driver’s seat of your Rover, right?”

He groans, duck his head to lean it against her shoulder. “I fucking hate you.”

She pats the back of his neck faux-sympathetically, laughing slightly. “But for no longer than five seconds at a time.”

He noses at her pulsepoint before pressing a wet, promising kiss there, voice a low grumble that goes straight to her lower belly. “Not if you come to my bedroom right now.”

Her fingers wrap around his, already pulling him towards the door. “Deal.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so no smut? *aggresively takes off sunglasses, smashes phone on the ground, breaks skateboard in half* wasnt feeling it when most clarke and bellamy have done this season is mention each others names. and not even in a sexy way like the used to in s4
> 
> i forgot to say last chapter and i dont know if its just wishful thinking but these aren't all gonna be 10k im learning to be succinct


	3. finally it seems my lonely days are through i've been waiting for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bellamy and Clarke tell Madi she's going to be a big sister.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> for this prompt i cheated. but theres nothing wrong with a little homewrecking. in fact, i think its sexy!
> 
> anyway, i think i know exactly who sent me this prompt anyway, and they wont mind. this is a continuation of one of my fave fics and biggest flops [heres a link](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15652209/chapters/36354618) you dont have to read it to understand this fic, but you might want to :) have had this idea for literal YEARS but am thinking i am never gonna turn it into a full-fledged fic so i might as well just do it here
> 
> prompt by anon: Fic where established relationship!bellarke tells adoptive daughter Madi that they’re having a baby

Madi is kind of shocked when her mom and Bellamy corner her after an unwarranted freakishly nice dinner (Taco Bell, her _favorite_!), sit her down on the couch and stare at her for a full minute, dead silent.

“What’s up?” Madi decides to break the silence herself, blue eyes flicking in between her mom and Bellamy scrutinizingly. She’d think they were breaking up by how serious they’re being. Her mom’s all fidgety, barely touched her food. Bellamy looks paler than she’s ever seen him, keeps tugging on his hair and jumping when she talks. It’s creepy. 

Not that she thinks they would actually _break up_ , but...

She’s heard them fighting a lot. Sat on the stairs with Ajax in her lap while she listened to them have argument after argument. It wasn’t always yelling, sometimes it’d be hushed whispers, too. Sometimes there’d be the yelling first, and then there’d be whispering. Those times were almost worse than if it was the other way around. 

The one after his birthday, a few months ago, that one was Bad. Capital B bad. No screaming, just soft, sad words. It was like he was disappointed with her mom and Madi was forced to feel the secondhand shame that came with it. “Clarke, you _know_. After ― After Gina.. I can’t do that again.” Madi knew too, because he’d told her once. About the baby he and his last wife tried to have. How it almost happened a few times. “I don’t want to lose you. I ― can’t. Not again.”

“You’re not going to lose me,” her mom had pressed, stubborn as always. Voice diplomatic, almost. It made Madi’s heart ache for Bellamy, the way her mom refused to understand where he was coming from. It secretly even made her heart ache for herself a little, too. Bellamy didn’t even want a baby, but there her mom was, actively _advocating_ for one. Maybe she wanted a do-over more than she loved Bellamy. And she loved Bellamy a lot. 

Her mom was never one to give up, she pushed through no matter what, but Madi wanted to yell at her from the top of the stairs to read the freaking room. The room her mom was actually in, and not just spying on. She never agreed when her mom’s friends called her cold, but now was the first time she could actually _see_ it. Her mom was kind of a bitch. And she felt the word was completely warranted in the context. No misplaced anger there.

It even got to the point ― slamming doors, awkward silent dinners, the guest room being used ― Madi thought they’re were going to break it off. 

She’d spent the whole night tossing and turning, thinking of all kind of eloquent, Instagram quote worthy things she’d say. Even Googled dating expert advice, and skimmed through an online edition of Women’s Health to find an article on life after loss, and wrote down keywords in her notes app. Madi had patiently waited until Bellamy pressed a kiss to her head in goodbye, only sharing a loaded look with her mom over her head, before leaving for work. Madi was going to do it, but when push came to show, maybe there was some lingering misplaced anger after all, because all she could blurt out was, “I thought you said I was enough.”

Clarke’s eyes had darted up from the news paper quickly, softening as she put her coffee mug down on the table in between them. It was the mug Madi had given her for her birthday when she was like, four. It was ugly, basically just different colored finger smears and a horribly misspelled ‘ _moom_ ’, and Grandma even tried to talk her out of giving it, but her mom burst out in tears as soon as she unwrapped the brown paper.

“You’ll always be _enough_ , Madi.”

Her blue eyes had narrowed, pushing her chair back from the table, “Screw that.”

Her eyebrows had shot up, that stern voice she always uses around Grandma making it’s grand appearance and Madi thought maybe that was it. Maybe her mom’s mom’s words have finally gotten to her, maybe she wants to do it right this time. A wedding, a planned baby, a dad that sticks around, the whole freaking live laugh love fad. “Mads―”

“No, you can’t look me in the eye and tell me I’m enough when you’re begging Bellamy to give you another baby. Do you want a do-over, is that it? Do you want your picture perfect little family this time?” Okay, and maybe she’d been pushing it at this point, but the words just didn’t stop coming, and she’d been fifteen and full of hormones. She feels like it’s justifiable. “What’s next? You’re going to put me up for fricking adoption?”

“Of course not,” Clarke had immediately opposed, gritting through her teeth. Her eyes were darker now, kind of pained, and Madi had suddenly felt bad. She hadn’t really meant to imply her mom wanted to get rid of her. Not when she could’ve gotten rid of her way back when, no questions asked, and _didn’t_. “We’re already a perfect family.”

Madi had been a second away from stomping her feet, eyes flicking up to the ceiling as she’d bristled, “Then _why_ ―”

She’d brushed some of her short, blonde hair behind her ear, biting her lip as her eyes had raked over the table. “You might not understand it right now, but I won’t be doing it for me, Madi.” She’d met her gaze, pulling the pleading puppy eyes on her. “I’ll be doing it for him.”

Sounded like a bunch of bull to her. If her mom still didn’t want to take her seriously, then to hell with it all. “Mom, I’ve heard the fights, I thought you were happy―”

Clarke cuts her off, “I _am_ happy, and I know he is too, it’s just ― I know this is something he wants, something he’s always wanted.” Madi had blinked at her, because she did not think it was. He’d been saying it for months. Did her mom want it in writing? “He’s just scared. Afraid that if he lets himself have this, he might lose us.” Her mom had gritted her teeth through a smile, straightening out her shirt absentmindedly, “And he’s being incredibly and stupidly stubborn about it.”

“He’d be a good dad,” Madi had agreed, with a shrug, just because.

Her eyebrows had risen, just a little. “He already is.”

Even if he wasn’t her actual dad, and she didn’t actually call him so, he kind of was. So was Finn. It was confusing to some, but made perfect sense to her. She lived fourteen years of her life without a father, and now she had two. And they were both different, _meant_ something different.

“Yeah, duh,” Madi had granted with a roll of her eyes, “But that doesn’t really count. You already did all of the hard work.” 

It’d hadn’t been an actual apology, but her mom smiled and all was well. For a little while, at least.

It hadn’t made sense to her at the time, what her mom said, because, traumas aside and everything, Bellamy seemed pretty dead-set on the fact he did not want children. But the more she thought about it and watched Grey’s Anatomy episodes related to it, the less _that_ made sense. 

Yes, there’s been countless of times he’s told her that Madi is the bonus daughter he’d thought he’d never have, and the year she turned sixteen she even gave him a father day's card that she knows he keeps in his nightstand still (to cry to when he thinks nobody’s listening, Madi thinks). But, he also lights up like a christmas tree whenever Octavia brings over that fricking monster toddler, that can only scream bloody murder and chew on freshly straightened hair and throw up his sister’s breast milk all over _people_ ’s favorite shirts. He’s obsessed with making Jax laugh, and gives Kyra piggy back rides even when he’s always complaining about his bad back, and him and Jordan have a secret handshake. His jokes are horrific. He watches documentaries for fun, glares at Ethan whenever they’ve broken up again, takes pictures of _everything_. Luca, some guy from her class, even called him a DILF. He’s like, the epitome of a dad. All that’s missing are the socks and sandals. 

Madi discussed it with Charlotte endlessly, and with Aunt Raven too, and even awkwardly and mistakenly brought it up in front of Finn during Captain Marvel’s intermission. 

She’d popped a skittle in her mouth, and she’d been thinking about Maria and Carol and Monica, and then the words _popped_ out just like that, “Do you see my mom having another kid?”

“Erm,” he’d started, scratching the back of his head uncomfortably. There’d been a kernel of popcorn stuck to his t-shirt and Madi focused her deer-like gaze there, shocked by her own question. “Like, with me?”

“No?” Madi had squeaked out, and she’d spent the rest of the intermission in the bathroom. As soon as Carol saved the world, and like feminism, Madi was out the theatre and on her bike halfway towards her home. She’d make it up to him next weekend, give him a free haircut or something. It would be a serious favor. He’d been like, pushing forty. He shouldn’t be walking around five inches shy of a manbun. 

The ultimate conclusion had been maybe Bellamy did _want_ a kid, deep down, and maybe, perhaps, possibly her mom had been right after all. Still, she knew Bellamy, knew how stubborn he was. She didn’t think he would ever give in. 

So color her freaking surprised they’re perched on the coffee table in front of her, pretending like they’re about to give her the Talk at the ripe old age of seventeen.

Madi studies them, judgmentally, with her arms crossed over her chest. “Are you guys getting married?”

“Well, not right now,” Bellamy says, stupidly, making a weird, muted guttural sound when her mom’s elbow collides with his ribs. 

“Then what is it?” She glares at the both of them through squinted eyes. Are they going to use her college fund to travel the world? Is Finn suing for sole custody? Did Uncle Murphy go to jail again? Spit it out already.

Bellamy clears his throat, eyeing her mom from the corner of his eyes. She’s still frozen in place, smiling weirdly. “Well―”

  
Clarke finally pipes up, voice croaking, “You’re going to be a big sister.”

Madi’s eyes widen, and a yelp leaves the back of her throat, and then she’s falling forward, throwing her arms around both of their necks. Bellamy catches most of her weight and then she’s folding her hands over her mom’s still relatively flat stomach. “Oh my god, there’s a baby in there!”

Her mom finally seems to relax, a genuine smile starting to form on her lips as she exchanges a glance with her boyfriend. “Yeah, there really is.”

“Wow,” Madi says, slowly retreating her fingers from her mother’s stomach and sinking back onto the couch, threading her hand through her hair. Her mind is running a mile a minute, maybe two. She can’t stop staring at her mom’s belly. That’s so freaking weird. She used to be in there. And now there’s a brother or sister in there. She hopes it’s a girl, not just so she can take cute mini me pics and post them on Insta, but definitely also because. 

Once she finally manages to lift her eyes away from her mom, she turns to Bellamy, still feeling somewhat dumbfounded. “What made you give in?”

“Uhm..” Bellamy starts, one of his arms is banded protectively around her mother’s waist, his free hand scratching at his beard.

“Okay, nevermind.” She grimaces, pulling her shoulders up to her ears. Every worst case scenario is flashing through her mind. Another accident, a broken condom, a forgotten pill, a miracle baby. Her mom held a break-up over his head, or like, withheld sex because emotional manipulation is totally okay when you’re doing it in the other person’s favor. They asked Finn and used a turkey baster. She’s been watching too much One Tree Hill. “I don’t want to know.” 

“Don’t be a brat,” her mom laughs, leaning into her boyfriend and wrapping her fingers around the hand resting in his lap. “I just finally managed to convince him we’d never leave him, no matter what.”

Okay. Sounds better than any of the horror scenarios her Netflixed brain came up with. Her eyes slide shut quickly, trying to keep any other mental images out, holding up a hand. “No details please.”

Her mom flicks her eyes up to the ceiling, unimpressed look on her face, although she still hasn’t stopped smiling. That’s totally pathetic. And awesome. “I wasn’t going to give them.”

Madi’s bushy eyebrows lift, sitting up as excitement courses through her veins. “Do I get naming rights?”

To her surprise, Bellamy’s the one to immediately oppose, “Absolutely not.”

She pouts, crossing her arms over her chest. “You did with Octavia.”

“And it was a glaring success,” he smirks, looking particularly smug. “That’s why I get to keep naming duty.”

Clarke knocks her shoulder into his chest softly, sending him a pointed look. “And it’s why _I_ will be getting limitless vetoes.”

“I’m so happy,” she exclaims, bouncing up and down on her seat a little. She sobers a little, moving her hair over to her right shoulder. “Did you guys really think I was going to be mad, or burst out in tears or something?”

“No,” her mom guarantees, biting her lip briefly. “But I knew that there wasn’t a Mamma Mia movie for you to mirror your emotions off of this time. And at the very least, it was a touchy subject.”

“Kinda,” Madi shrugs, realizing that, now she’s sat with it for a few minutes and her crazy adrenaline levels have tuckered out, she really is okay with. This is cool, and new, and totally exciting. “But I’m alright with it. I’m off to college in less than a year and I think you’d go mad if you didn’t have a new project to focus on.”

Her mom scrunches up her nose. “It’s a baby, not a project.”

“It’s kind of project, babe,” Bellamy argues as he squeezes her hand, grinning stupidly big. He’s like, glowing more than her mom. It’d be embarrassing if it wasn’t so adorable. “A work in progress.”

“Well, as long as you guys don’t forget about your first draft version, namely _me_ ― I think we’ll be just fine.”

* * *

(Madi always thought she knew what love was. Her and Aden had experienced something like it, a puppy version that sometimes made it hard not to go back to him when he smiled at her as if they hadn’t already tried it a million times before. With all her aunts and uncles, and baby cousins, and friends, and their old, cranky cat, there was always plenty enough of it to go around. She felt it in her late night cuddles with her mom as they watched some stupid musical they’d seen countless of times before, even if near the end of her pregnancy her mom was always passed out cold before the clock even struck eight. When Bellamy told her, in passing, he’d be taking her mom’s last name at their shotgun city hall wedding so Madi could have the same last name as her sibling and she spent the rest of the afternoon silently sobbing in her room. She felt it as Aunt Harper braided her hair, or her Grandma bought her an ugly sundress she wouldn’t want to be caught dead in, or when her uncle Zeke hacked into some guy’s phone to delete a suggestive bikini picture, no questions asked, and hasn’t snitched to _anyone_ ― not even Raven ― to this very day. It’s Finn, pretending to care about her teen drama in order to spend a few hours a week with her. 

It’s when Murphy proclaimed, one warm summer night out on his fire escape as he offered her her first beer after her umpteenth break-up with Aden, “Kid, I didn’t know what love was until Emori started making me brush my teeth once a week.”

She had to pull away from glaring at her disgustingly bitter beer to gape at him instead, “Once a _week_?”

At one point, she’d even thought _that_ was the epitome of love.

But she’d been wrong, about all of it. Completely, utterly wrong. All of it had been love, different shapes and sizes and forms but, frick. She didn’t truly know love until she first laid her eyes on her baby sister. The thing wasn’t anything like her. Her skin brown, her dark hair impossibly curly, her dark eyes ― although her mom told her that can still change ― and full lips, freckles scattered across her tiny boopable nose, and pudgy, oh so pudgy, like the guy from the Michelin logo, but worse. It’s great. 

Madi would die for her. Willingly. No questions asked. Like, right there. Just dropping dead. Poof ― life over. She might, just because she feels like her heart feels like it could burst at any moment.

It’s like pieces falling into place. It’s like the “I’ve Been Waiting For You” montage number from Mamma Mia: Here We Go Again finally making sense. Maybe even “Slipping Through My Fingers” too, time never having been so precious before. (Seriously, she _loves_ those movies. She can say that now.) It’s fricking _love_.

It just makes her appreciate her mom even more. All she’s done, all she’s sacrificed, all she’s given her. And maybe the greatest gift of all, right here in her arms, a baby sister.)


	4. we built a dynasty forever couldn't break up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> prompt by definitely kisha, who's birthday just happened: canon divergent fic where Bellarkes future kid comes out of the anomaly with hope ... and ya know.. angst ensues. Family feels . Fluff and angst really just that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> fuck you jason rothenberg i hope you burn in hell

In the middle of the night, Clarke’s abruptly yanked from one of her nightmares by a loud crash outside. When she blinks open her eyes and sits up on her make-shift bed, a chartreuse beam of light illuminates one side of her tent, slipping in through the cracks. Quickly pulling on her boots and reaching for her jacket, she pushes her way outside.

They’ve been travelling from planet to planet, trying to find Octavia. It’s been minutes and years, seconds and decades at the same time. Once they get to earth, or at least something that resembles the earth she used to know, they’re stuck. The stone that’s supposed to bring them back — to Sanctum, to their people, to a new lead that might finally bring them to Octavia this time around — it refuses to work for days, to the point where not even Gabriel knows how to get them back. If they ever _can_ go back.

Clarke knows it’s likely Octavia’s might not even be alive anymore. From what Bellamy told her, she was stabbed in a crucial place and it’s not all that likely she’s survived it for this long, if at all. She didn’t tell him, of course, but she didn’t have to. He knows. And it’s not Clarke’s place to judge him, she’s held out hope grasping onto less. 

Once, he told her as long as they would be breathing, he’d have hope. And she knows that as long as he lives, he’ll keep fighting for his sister. Dead or alive. 

Clarke is one of the first people up and out of their tents, making her way over to the stone just up one of the steep inclines behind the tree line. Gabriel is already there, talking to — someone. She doesn’t recognize either of the girls, but as she’s slowly closing the distance and squinting at the dark, she realizes both of them have something familiar about them. Something she can’t quite place. 

They look innocent enough, and the anomaly has definitely spit out worse, but looks can deceive.

“It’s you,” Gabriel says, and Clarke has to strain to hear him. He’s looking at the tallest of the two girls, her hair pulled back with elaborate braids and intricate jewels woven through the strands, pale skin covered in black markings. “Hope.”

“It is,” she says, unphased, just as Clarke comes to a stop beside Gabriel. _Hope_. She can see it now, in the sharp jawline, the same shade of dirty blonde locks and the confident way she holds herself. Diyoza’s daughter. 

The girl who stabbed Octavia. Her eyes narrow, but before she can reach for the gun lodged in the waistband of her pants the girl beside Hope falls into her arms. 

"Finally," the girl breathes, squeezing her tight, burying her head into Clarke’s neck. She’s frozen with her arms around the younger girl, in a complete state of shock as her mind races. Did dying mess with her head? Is she still dreaming? Did she forget an entire person? "I've been looking everywhere for you, mom."

Clarke’s stomach drops, immediately pulling back. "Mom?"

The girl, who can’t be older than sixteen, beams up at her as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. She pulls one of her blonde strands of hair. “So short,” she comments, playful, as if they’re old friends reuniting.

Clarke’s fingers tighten around the other girl’s biceps, swallowing visibly as she rakes her face. The girl can’t be older than fifteen. She doesn’t resemble her daughter in the slightest, but maybe time has played tricks, maybe it’s hard to tell in the darkness of the night, or maybe — "Madi?"

"Oh my God, no. _Ew,_ ” the girl says, her freckled nose scrunching up as she pulls a face. “I told you you play favorites.” When Clarke just blinks at her in confusion, the brunette’s familiar smirk is traded in for a forehead full of annoyed wrinkles. “She had to stay back and take care of some business that—" 

Before she has the chance to further elaborate, her eyes trail towards the rest of the people slowly starting to trickle in around the stone, lighting up when they fall onto one person in particular. "Dad!"

As if on auto-pilot, Clarke turns to follow the girl, watching her almost stumble over her own feet to get to him, but he catches her just in time. Bellamy's eyes widen, but he holds onto her nonetheless, fingers weaving into the hair at the back of her head as she throws her thin arms around his neck, lifting up on her tiptoes just slightly. He finds Clarke's confused gaze over the girl’s dark head, a question in his eyes. 

Her heart is beating a mile a minute, her mouth drying up. What the hell is going on? The same girl who called her mom, just called him dad. She called _Bellamy_ dad. She won’t need Raven’s help to figure out this one. 

Someone pulls on Bellamy’s elbow, causing the girl to pull away from him. “Who’s this?” Echo asks, face a blank slate like usual.

The girl tilts her head back, narrowing her dark eyes at the boney fingers wrapped around his elbow. A short-tempered flare of indignation crosses the girl’s face, making a surge of recognition stab at Clarke’s chest. “Who the hell are _you_?”

Bellamy clears his throat, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. Clarke can tell he’s starting to piece it together, because now she’s not even sure how she missed it in the first place. This girl is the spitting image of him — the dark wavy hair, the shape of their noses, her freckled skin only a fraction lighter than his. “This is Echo, my girlfriend. Who are—”

“Your girlfriend?” She exclaims in disbelief, pulling another one of those disgusted faces, looking over her shoulder at Clarke, who just freezes again. She always thought she was more of a fight than flight kind of woman, but apparently she is neither. And apparently this girl thinks she has a say over who Bellamy does or doesn’t date. “Mom, what the hell?”

“Mom?” Echo repeats as if the word tastes bitter in her mouth. 

Bellamy’s eyes meet Clarke’s in alarm, as if she might have more answers, and she feels like she might actually get sick. Her stomach is knotted with dread, a thin layer of sweat starting to form on the pale skin at the base of her neck. This can’t be happening. 

“This is fucking hilarious,” Murphy comments from somewhere in the back, lightly cackling, as if this isn’t the worst thing that’s ever happened to her. It’s humiliating, knowing — _knowing_ , and yet she’s nothing more than a friend to him here, now. Clarke can’t even be pissed. She just feels strangely numb, as if she’s having an out of body experience. 

“Everyone out,” Hope orders calmly, eyes flitting around on everyone before landing on her and Bellamy. Tension in the air grows thick, suffocating. “Except you two.”

Echo opens her mouth to protest, but Gabriel cuts her a look, nudging his head toward camp. Luckily, she’s a good follower and not much more objection comes from the group of people. Clarke focuses her eyes on the gravel crushed under her boots until she’s certain all of them have left, and when she finally looks up she finds Bellamy’s gaze is glued on the young girl’s face. His voice is hoarser than it was before, “Who are you?”

“My name is Thalia,” the girl answers, although it sounds more like a defensive question, a familiar recalcitrant gleam in her eyes. As if they should just _know_. As if she has won some upper hand neither of them know about.

Except he does seem to know, because Bellamy blanches, his breath hitching in the back of his throat as he falls a step back. He shakes his head lightly, sliding his hands over the side of his head as he looks at the other girl, now crouched over by the stone, running her fingertips over the symbols. “Where’s Octavia?”

“Who’s Octavia?” Hope says monotonously, even if there’s a layer of sarcasm to her voice, not bothering to look up at him. Clarke is glad she seems more like her mom, a regular terrorist, and not her dad, an actual psychopath. She would hate for her — for _Thalia_ , to be spending so much time with someone who could potentially be harmful to her.

Thalia rolls her eyes, crossing her arms over her small chest. “Don't mind her, anomaly starts affecting your brain cells if you travel too much. There’s just mush inside her skull at this point."

“What? Like your memories?” Bellamy clarifies, and Clarke can’t decide if his tone is more hopeful or regretful. She can’t look at him, knowing the thought of them sharing a child disgusts him so much. 

She shrugs, lazy. “Technically, yes.”

"Has it taken yours?" Clarke blurts out before she even thinks it completely through, the obvious underlying question clear to everyone.

Thalia looks severely unimpressed, a huff of mirthless laughter spilling over her lips. "You think I forgot who my parents are?"

She can’t look at Bellamy, keeps her eyes trained strictly on Thalia’s face. Not that it makes much of a difference. It’s still him she sees, in the high cheekbones, the tight clench in her jaw, the dark unruly glint in her brown eyes. "Maybe."

This time she actually laughs — a loud, joyous, carefree sound — although it somehow still feels like she’s making fun of Clarke. "So hypothetically, to gain your trust before I screw you over, because that’s obviously what you think is happening here, I pick the two most emotionally constipated people in the room, one of whomst has a girlfriend and the other one who freezes at the smallest of touches, and both look like they'd rather die than have a child together?"

"If you knew what we've been through—" Bellamy starts to cut in, but she interrupts him with another leisurous roll of her eyes. "I _do_ know, you've told me all about it. Practically bored me to death with it all, dad."

He reels back at the mention of the word ‘dad’, and Clarke quickly averts her eyes. Thalia frowns, deflating, probably finally realizing their aversion to the situation. "Look, like it or not, you are my dad and you are my mom. That is not our biggest problem. in fact, it's not a problem at all. When I left you two—"

"Don't," Clarke cuts her off, desperate, scrambling for an excuse. She can’t bear to hear about a life she’ll never have. "I mean, there must be rules to this, right?” She’s well aware she’s sounding a little pathetic, her voice strained. “You can't tell us everything about our future or we might change it."

Clarke tells herself it’s okay not to want this girl to disappear into nothing, daughter or not. It’s not implying anything she might _want_ for herself in the future. 

"Nah, that's not how time works,” she retorts, easily, rubbing at her eyes as if tired. “It's not linear.” She blinks open her eyes, a slow way-too-cocky smirk forming on her lips. “Besides, I don’t know a single parallel universe in which the two of you don't end up together."

Clarke blinks at her, stupid. "What?"

"I've been to a few,” Thalia starts, obvious, and this prompts a small, distant laugh from her partner in crime. “Hope is kind of obsessed.” She smiles, genuine for a second before it turns smug again. “Now that I think about it, there was the one where I walked in on you and uncle Murphy. Although I think it was a scheme to make Aunt Em j—"

Bellamy interrupts, an actual panic-stricken look on his face. Or it looks like panic, and then he looks physically ill, and then his nostrils are flaring. "Murphy?'

Clarke turns her glare on him, gritting out, “Like you’re in the position to judge my dating choices.”

It’s quiet for just a beat. The corner of his mouth twitches. “Still, _Murphy_?”

Her cheeks heat, not finding it in herself to defend that particular choice of hers, in whatever universe it may be. It’s just the principle of it. “Shut up.”

Thalia seems delighted at the sight of the two of them bickering. "Point is,” she emphasises, drawing their attention back to her, “I’ve been to a lot of universes. You can't fight destiny."

Clarke swallows hard, shoulders tensing as she looks at — her daughter. She can see it now, too. The long eyelashes, the shape of her mouth, the wide hips. That’s all her. 

“Thal, over here,” Hope calls out. “I found the scriptures.”

As she skips off, Clarke finally levels her gaze at him, sharing a loaded look. There’s so much she wants to say, but can’t. Two weeks ago, he was risking his life to save her. Two weeks, that might as well have been two minutes or two years. Nothing ever changes. Not distance, or timing, or separation, no looming apocalypses or surprise reunions, not almost dying. 

Yet this — this is a _person_. Headstrong, and brash, light and self-reliant. With the most beautiful laugh, who smells like pressed flowers and pine trees. Thalia. A piece of him, a piece of her — she is theirs. She has a life, and friends, memories and inside jokes, hopes and dreams, a purpose. Somehow Clarke thinks this isn’t one of those things they can deny. 

He sighs, a long, drawn out huff of air, looking wounded for the split second he flits his eyes away from her. She tells herself it’s okay to feel a flash of stupid, longing hope, imagining he might be thinking about breaking up with his girlfriend and not telling Clarke it’s never going to happen. “Can we deal with this later?”

She takes a deep breath, watching her daughter crouch down beside Hope to look at whatever they came back in time, across universes, through space for. Whatever it is, because there’s always _something_ , it probably beats talking to her best friend about how inevitable it apparently is that they’ll have a child together someday. “Always.”

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 


	5. NFWMB

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk this one feels a little kinky i guess so youre warned in advance
> 
> prompt from anon: Bellamy and Clarke have a kid and she gets upset at Bellamy for calling her baby because she’s a big girl now. So he calls Clarke baby instead.

"Why are you moping?"

Bellamy grunts, keeping his eyes on his book. "I'm not moping."

"Yes, you are,” Clarke opposes easily, unfurling his tight grip from the cover to drag the book into her lap before blindly placing it on her nightstand. "Your face is all broody and sad. This is your mopey face."

A dramatic sigh falls from his lips as he shifts further down on the bed and rests his head on top of her breasts over her t-shirt, throwing an arm across her waist. She weaves her fingers into his hair, holding him close and scratching his scalp softly as her chest rumbles with quiet laughter. "Tell me."

He buries his face further into her chest, so his words sound muffled. "I dropped Keats off at school today."

"It's Tuesday, yes,” she deadpans, implied eyeroll in her tone. 

He bristles, pulling his face away so he can properly glare at her. “Clarke."

"Fine,” she huffs, laced with laughter at her husband’s dramatics. “I'll reel it in. Go on."

"I told her to have a good day and eat all of her lunch, not just the snacks."

Clarke waits for him to continue, but it seems like he needs more prompting. Dryly, she pushes, "The suspense is killing me. Did she tell you she wishes she was adopted again?"

He pinches her waist, making her squeal. " _ No _ ,” he emphasizes, writhing the arm previously around her waist underneath it so he can shift her down onto the bed below him with one swift pull of his strong arm. “She told me she was too big to be called 'baby' now." Clarke snakes her arm in between where he’s caging her body with his, reaching up to push a curl from his eyes. She thinks he’s actually pouting. It’s ridiculous. "That none of the other kids' parents still called them 'baby'."

Clarke ignores the little nostalgic pang in her chest. It seems like it was only yesterday Keats was just a baby, depending on them for everything. Now she’s no longer asking for them to kiss her scraped knees, she just gets back up on her bike. She ties her own shoelaces and gladly pours her own cereal. 

"Bell, she's eight,” she counters, matter-of-factly, trying to keep a cool head because God knows he won’t. “She'll always be our daughter. She's just — doing what she thinks is cool now." Clarke adds a little shrug, just to make sure he doesn’t see right through her and her casual attitude.

"She's getting too big,” he complains, leaning down on his forearms so more of his weight is on top of her. He’s sticky with warmth, and heavy. “I mean soon I'm going to have to teach her how to drive stick, and have to swat boys and girls away from her, and then before you know it, she's going off to college."

Talk about dramatics. Clarke’s exasperation is laced with stupid fondness at his unprompted doom spiral, "Keats loves you. Just because she doesn't want you to call her 'baby' anymore doesn't mean she’s going to dye her hair pink, get a nose piercing and stop talking to you."

He scoffs, burying his face back into her collarbone, nose pressing against the column of her throat. "I just didn't think it would happen this fast."

Obviously he’s going to be feeling sorry for himself no matter how many times she reassures him Keats thinks the absolute world of him. Clarke tries a different approach, dragging her nails down his back slowly, coming to rest on the waistband of his briefs. "You still have me, don't you?"

He lifts his head, pushing himself up slightly so he can look down on her. A boyish smile takes over his face, one that never fails to make her stomach flip. "Yeah?"

She pulls up her knees so she can tighten them around his waist, her voice thick with a mixture of both reverence and unapologetic horniness. "Always."

Bellamy nuzzles her jaw, pressing a kiss there, murmuring, "Yeah, you'll always be my baby, huh?"

“Of course,” she answers, dipping her hand under the waistband of his dark boxer briefs, grabbing a handful of his tight ass. She lets out a shuddery breath as he starts kissing down her neck. “And I  _ really _ want to make another baby with you.”

“You do, huh?” He repeats, amused, his hand finding hers to intertwine their fingers right beside her head.

It took her a while after Keats, a happy accident, to make more room in her life for another kid. They’ve talked it through, and it’s definitely something she knew he wanted but didn’t know how to ask for, and now that her general life and her art gallery feel more settled, it’s something she’ll more than happily give him. 

“It’s been almost three months since I stopped taking them now,” she breathes, biting down on her lip as he sucks on a particularly sensitive spot on her neck. She struggles to focus on verbalizing her thoughts. “Got my period the week before last so we should be right in my ovulation window.“

He nips at her collarbone, dragging his face back up to kiss her until they’re panting, wet mouths red and bruised. “You’re so sexy when you talk menstrual cycle to me.”

“I can talk you through my different discharge textures or you can put a baby in me.” Her eyes slowly move up from where her finger is drawing circles into his chest, a little glazy with lust but bright and deliberately purposeful on his. “Your choice, daddy.”

His brown eyes grow even darker than before, ducking back down to kiss her as one of his hands slips right under his shirt she’s wearing, dipping into her underwear to test her folds. She’s warm, slick like velvet. “That’s what you want, huh? For me to put a baby inside you?”

“Yes,” she gasps on a broken moan, two of his fingers pushing their way inside of her. Her eyes flutter closed, focusing on the sensations of his mouth on her neck, shoulder, his warm skin pressed against hers, his thumb on her clit. “Feels so good.”

  
"I know it does," he chuckles darkly. "You're my greedy little girl, huh?"

She’s so keyed up, he works her over the edge entirely too quickly, no time for her to even worry about the size of his ego. The orgasm burns fast and hot, but it's nothing more intense than a sneeze and it leaves her pussy soaked and throbbing for more. He starts dragging her panties down her legs, dragging up her knee so he can unhook it from her ankle, looking up from her in between the apex of her thighs with blown pupils and kiss-bitten lips. “You ready?”

“I have been ready,” she argues, pointedly, and probably more than brattily, as if she’s upset he just made her orgasm. His free hand drags his shirt up to her chin so he can lower his mouth to her breasts, working over the tight pink buds with his teeth and tongue until she’s writhing beneath him.

“These are going to get so big again,” he murmurs, almost reverent, taking one of them into his palms. He squeezes it in his grip, before pinching the hard nub with his forefinger and thumb, a jolt of pleasure-pain running up her spine. 

“Daddy,” she whines, impatient, tightening her knees around his hips. It aches, terribly. 

“Shh,” he cooes, pressing a soft kiss to her lips as he starts pushing his briefs down his hips. He dips his fingers back inside of her, earning a small yelp before he uses her arousal to stroke his dick a few times, wetting it for her. “I’m going to give you what you need, okay, baby?”

It’s both a promise of the sweet relief of pleasure, and something much darker, primal. He’s going to give her a baby, and she’s going to carry it for nine months, grow and nurture it. A piece of him and her. The thought makes a surge of need pulse through her body, making it grow tenser with anticipation.

She hums eagerly in response, half broken off as he finally pushes inside of her, her eyes rolling into the back of her head as he stretches her wide open. Clarke’s eyes remain shut as he starts to pound into her, fast and hard, making her feel so full it hurts. It's exactly what she wanted.

“You always feel so good, baby,” he rasps just below her ear, mouthing at her neck. “So tight, so warm. All for me.”

She just lets out a weak moan in response, too far gone, doing her best to meet every single one of his thrusts with as much eagerness as him as her cunt involuntarily flutters around him at his words. Bellamy fucks her harder, building up a steady, relentless rhythm. “You’re going to look so pretty, baby. Pregnant with my baby.”

Clarke can’t stop thinking about it. His baby inside of her. Growing a life they made together. She’s going to get so big again, and he’ll tell her she looks beautiful every day and mean it too. It'll be even more proof that she's his, and he's hers — this little life that all theirs. 

“Oh fuck,” she cries, knees tightening around his hips and nails biting into his shoulders. “I’m going to come.”

“Yes, you are,“ he encourages her, fingers working over her clit. “That’s it. Come on my cock, baby. Come so I can fill you up just the way you need.”

Clutching onto him tightly, the tight tension in her body breaks all at once, hot white pleasure washing over in her waves. All she manages is a broken gasp, rocking her hips on his cock while riding out her orgasm. 

“Going to come inside of you,” Bellamy promises, lowly, his body growing tense on top of her. “That’s what you want, isn’t it, baby?”

“Mhm,” she whimpers, her body still twitching from oversensitivity as her cunt spasms around him, pushing him further over the edge. It’s her words that do him in, “Please come inside of me, daddy. Please.”

He pushes even deeper inside of her, biting down on her shoulder with a grunt as he comes. It’s almost like a third, entirely new and quieter orgasm washes over this time when she feels him spill warmly inside of her. 

Bellamy holds her tightly as they catch their breaths, heavy on top of her. After a while he lifts his head to look at her with an affectionate smile, voice thick and husky from their recent pleasure. “You good?”

Her entire body feels heavy and bone-tired, and she’s surprised she’s even able to form the words at all. Her eyes slide shut again. “Great.”

His winds a strand of blonde hair around his finger, dropping a kiss to her chin. “You want to do that again sometime?”

She tries to hum at him to keep from wasting too much energy, but her throat protests so she forces herself to verbalize it anyway. “Probably.”

Clarke feels his smirk against the hollow of her throat, nipping softly at her pulsepoint before he asks her, all too smugly, “Did I fuck the ability to form more than one word sentences out of you?’

She slowly peeks at him through squinted, heavy-lidded eyes. “Yes.”

He laughs heartily, pressing a kiss to the corner of her mouth before rolling off her and pulling her into his chest. The back of his knuckles brush lightly over her lower belly, and when he goes to pull them away as if too embarrassed to be caught, Clarke wraps her fingers around his wrist, keeping him in place. 

One of the things she admires about Bellamy so much is his ability to love, his heart bigger than anyone else she’s ever met. He’s often admitted to her in the dark of night that he didn’t truly understand what his purpose was until he met her and they had Keats, that he didn’t get it until then. He had it before, raising his sister, just a glimpse of it, but he didn’t understand it at the time. It also means that he doesn’t know who he is to them or what to do with himself if they don’t need him to hold their hand through every little thing in their lives. 

Her eyes soften, intertwining their fingers with a small squeeze. “This one will grow up too, you do know that, right?”

He scoffs half-heartedly, smacking his lips against her still sweaty forehead. “Then we’ll just make another one.”

“Bell,” she warns, without much heat. 

“I know,” he sighs loudly, averting his gaze. He drums on monotonously, “It’s why people have children. Eventually as a parent you want them to be independent so they can make their own positive mark on society.”

Clarke lets out a small huff of laughter. “Why do you say that like you’re directly quoting a self-help parenting book?”

He winces. “Because I am.”

A surge of affection runs through her. Stupid idiot. “They’re always going to need you, even if they’re off living their own lives,” Clarke promises. She pushes herself up on her elbow, sliding her hand over his chest until it rests over his heart, a steady thrum under her palm. “ _I’m_ always going to need you.”

They made a promise, a commitment, to be partners, a team, a  _ family _ . To go through it together, no matter what they face. His dark brown eyes stay heavy and insistent on hers, her heartbeat speeding up and slowing down in a matter of milliseconds at the love and affection she finds there. 

There’s a little knock on the door that barely gives Bellamy enough time to scramble to grab his boxers and shove them back on before it creaks open, two little feet pitter-pattering over the carpet until she’s peering over the edge of their boxspring with wide brown eyes exactly like her father’s. “Can I sleep here with you?”

“I told you,” Clarke says with a knowing smile as she watches her husband lift their daughter into their bed, pulling his shirt down enough to cover everything as she slides off the mattress to make her way over to the bathroom. 

His definitely more than pleased voice echoes all the way through their bedroom, “Saying I told you so is unbecoming, even on you, princess.”


	6. they don't know about the things we do

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt from anon: teenage friends bellarke where Bellamy thinks he’s not good enough for her bc he’s poor 😭 and Abby hates him, but angst and fluff!
> 
> teeny tiny fact about me, i dont really like teenager bellarke so i tweaked this a little and probaly ruined it. sorry!  
> 

Clarke’s nose scrunches up as she watches Miller toss a pistachio at Murphy, which hits him directly in the eyeball before Emori picks it up off the floor and pops in her mouth. Harper starts berating them for being disgusting while yanking the controller from Murphy, and Emori starts, “Believe me, if I can put his dick in my mouth without wincing at the taste, a little eyeball fluid--” before Miller covers her mouth with his hand, grimacing.

Upstairs, one of Octavia’s friend’s screams over the loud metal music blasting from his sister’s room, a bunch of rambunctious giggles following quickly. It’s this that finally prompts Clarke to lift her head from the crook of Bellamy’s neck, putting the bottle of beer in her hand down on the coffee table in front of them. “Why do we never go to my house?”

Her heart pangs a little longingly at the thought of the whole wing she practically has to herself, the ensuite bathroom and the multiple walls separating her from the rest of her family.

“Clarke,” his smirk fades quickly, tearing his eyes off his friends. It was a half-hearted, mostly rhetorical question, but his reaction is the thing that makes her straighten. “I’m not in the mood to fight right now.”

Her eyes narrow on her boyfriend as she pulls further away from him, crossing her arms over her chest defensively even if she isn’t quite sure what she’s defending at the moment. “How about instead of fighting, you can just talk to me?”

“Because I don’t _want_ to talk about it,” he exhales loudly, rubbing his temples with his thumb and forefinger before pinching the bridge of his nose, getting agitated now. “We only have what? Forty-eight hours left before break is over and we have to survive on text messages and pixelated FaceTime calls for another--”

She scoffs, looking him up and down. “Which _again_ , why are we here and not at my place, where we can have some privacy?”

In between summer break and this one, it’s been a good month and a half. It’s going to be even double that amount before their holiday breaks roll around, and they’ve barely spent any time together alone so far. His house is always crawling with people like it’s a community clubhouse, and it’s where the two of them always instinctively end up like it’s some unspoken rule. 

It’s not that Clarke hates it here. It’s where they had their first kiss last summer after meeting at the bar he worked and swiftly tried to kick her out of for being underage. It’s where they spent that entire afternoon on the fourth of July bickering and trying to blow up a kiddie pool with the sweltering sun beating down on their necks, only to find out it had a hole in the bottom by the time they finally tried to fill it with water (thanks Octavia), so they just ended up taking a cold cramped shower together instead while fireworks boomed outside. And the place where she’s fallen asleep in his arms more often than she could count at his point, warm and heavy around her, on the couch, or his ratty old trampoline that creaked angrily every time they breathed funny, or in the way too narrow bed that smells exactly like him. In fact, growing up as an only child and being so intimately accustomed to loneliness during her high school years, this house is where she always feels more at ease than she ever has in her oversized, often more empty than not mansion with marble counters, hardwood floors and portraits of the ghosts from her past. Here, there’s always laughter, always a warm meal waiting, nobody making a fuss about a spilled drink or the music being on too loud.

And there’s Bellamy, which was definitely a plus until thirty seconds ago. 

He rolls his eyes, that closed off expression shuttering across his face that she recognizes like no other, the one he gets when he’s trying to deflect the attention off of himself. “Just say you don’t want to hang out with my friends--”

His friends. A touchy subject. 

They didn’t really take to her when he first started bringing her around. She couldn’t really blame them since Bellamy had disliked her at the start for some of those very reasons and probably had been pretty vocally complaining to them about those very reasons. Clarke’s from the other side of town where they have their own private neighbourhood watch, goes to an Ivy League on her surgeon’s mother’s dime, has very loud opinions that often come from a place of extreme privilege, not to forget she was and sometimes still is excessively high strung and controlling. She’s mellowed out a little since being with Bellamy and being on her own on campus, and slowly, it’s started to unthaw his friends around her as well. Case and point, their abusive ways with a bag of fucking pistachios right in front of her. 

“Screw you, Bellamy,” she seethes, quietly, not wanting them to overhear. The last thing she needs is for his friends gang up on her and insert themselves into the discussion. “You know that’s not what I meant. Stop putting words in my mouth.”

Clarke stares at him for a long moment, fiery blue eyes boring into his narrowed dark brown ones, and for a second she thinks he’s not going to give in, but then his eyes flit to the left and then back to the television. His jaw clenches, his fingers curling into fists on top of his thighs before uncurling. "She hates me."

Clarke deflates visibly, her shoulders sagging as she lets out a small sigh. Of course this is about _her_. The reason for the many late night fights Clarke had last summer, her mother scared that she was going to be distracted once she went to school, drop out of Yale, or end up pregnant. Which was kind of funny, because her boyfriend had many of the same insecurities about their relationship at the start. She had to convince him to even try long distance, since he thought and figured for the both of them that she was better off without him. The idiot was even surprised when he found out he wasn’t just a summer fling, that she wanted it to work out for them in the long run. Besides, she loves Bellamy, but she’s not that stupid. Her mom should’ve at least known _her_ better than that. "So what? Your mom hates me too."

His gaze quickly falls back on hers, the slight panicked edge to his baritone probably unrecognizable to anyone else. "No she doesn't."

"Octavia told me,” she retorts, matter-of-factly, the corners of her lips turning up just slightly at him trying to protect her feelings even while fighting. His sister gloated about it even, now that Clarke recalls that particular happy end of summer memory. “It's okay."

He shifts, so his back is against the armrest of the couch and he’s facing her more completely. His brow furrows, his mouth flattening into a thin line. "What did she tell you?"

Clarke sighs, sagging back into the couch. It doesn’t really bother her, per se. Aurora’s never openly said anything to her, never even so much as hinted at it with words or actions, but she could tell even from the first time she met his mom, just from the look in her eye that Clarke was not what Aurora had expected for her son. Octavia just liked to rub it in, still annoyed with her brother for taking home a girl only a year older than her, convinced she could tell Clarke anything she hadn’t already thought of herself. Thinking, something she’s really good at overdoing, especially at night. She ticks them off easily from memory, kind of amused by the whole situation in hindsight, "That your mom thinks I'm bad for you. That I make you do things you don't want to. That we could never work out anyway."

"That's bullshit,” he spits, immediate, a look on his face like Octavia is going to be on the receiving end of one of his speeches by the end of the night. Not if it’s up to Clarke, because she initially had other plans.

"I know,” she agrees, smiling at his certainty. "So is whatever my mom thinks of you."

“What? That I’m too old for you? That I’m a reason to get back at her for your dad? That I’m out of your league?“ Bellamy huffs lightly, fixating his eyes on her hand, resting over her thigh. Lightly, he shakes his head, pushing back a few curls from his forehead. “Those are all true.”

A flare of anger rises up within her, but she swallows it down. She eyes his friends for a second, still distracted with the videogame playing on the small television, intertwining their fingers as she pulls him up from the couch. Clarke nudges her head towards the backdoor, leading him out onto the porch. 

Clarke leans against the wall next to the door, foot kicked back and arms crossed. She tries to keep her tone light, tries to keep it from trembling with rage, but all she hears is the loud pounding of her blood, drowning out even the sound of her own voice, “So there’s a lot to unpack in what you just said there--”

“Sorry,” he says, cutting her off, running his hand down her bicep before letting it drop down back at his side when she jerks away. His face falls even more at the expression on her face. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“No, don’t apologize,” she starts, seeing red, keeping her voice as casual as possible. “I mean, I guess you did rob the cradle and all, me fresh from high school, you a now super senior in college.”

What was he thinking? Giving in to her month long advances, stalking him at the bar he worked at until he finally accepted her invitation to watch a movie on either end of the couch in broad daylight? Kissing her on the stairs after weeks of pleading on her end, palms on her cheeks, his family just in the other room. Ignoring that despite their age difference, from the minute they met, it felt like they’d known each other all their lives? Like they shared this dark need buried somewhere deep within themselves that matched each other’s perfectly, completely undeterred by the very different lives they led up until that point? 

His nostrils flare, teeth gritting together. “Shut up.”

“What?” She continues easily, even if she knows she’s pushing it. She’s just so mad. “Maybe I should change my major to Drama, what do you think? All this time I’ve been pretending to love you, playing tetris on my phone behind your back while you fuck me, all because my mother adviced my dad against getting treatment for the MS that I had to watch cripple him daily--”

A wounded expression flashes across his face, sobering a little. “Clarke--”

She’s too far gone to stop now, every muscle in her body pulled tight with frustration, her heart pounding on loudly. “Oh, and don’t even get me started on the fact that I could never be with someone who chose studying a subject he loves over a 100k yearly income and a country club subscription, because apparently money is the thing that gets me hot--”

His fingers dig into her arms, cutting her off with a harsh look, almost pleadingly, “I get it, okay?”

Her forehead wrinkles, her eyes darkening on his even if she does let his touch ground her back down to earth. “So what? You don’t think I’m an immature little girl with mommy issues and a serious classist complex?”

Bellamy doesn’t say anything, just inhales sharply through his nose as he stares her down, seemingly recognizing that whatever he says right now won’t deter her from what she needs to say anyway.

She licks her cracked lips, shaking her head slightly. “Do you see how this entire backstory you’ve made up about me only hurts me? That you having one foot out of the door at all times only hurts us?” 

His voice is hoarse when he finally does speak. “I didn’t--”

“I know,” Clarke cuts him off, most of the anger having fled her system by now. “But fuck what my mom thinks, okay?” She inches closer, tilting up her chin to keep his gaze. “And fuck what you think, too.” It’s now her voice actually trembles, almost too scared to admit it out loud, “If you don’t want to believe we can make it, I will for the both of us.”

“For the record, I don’t have one foot out of the door,” he confesses, thumbing a strand of hair away from her forehead, placing it behind her ear. His eyes rake hers for a moment, his mouth opening and closing soundlessly. She sees the self-doubt there, but most of all the respect and love he has for who she is. Finally, he clarifies, “I just sometimes have a very hard time believing that a nineteen year old little brat like you, with her whole life still ahead of her -- that she would want to be with me.”

A slow smile has started to form on his mouth, obviously trying to turn it into a joke, because they talk a lot, about things they don’t talk about with anyone else, have never even admitted to themselves, but never really about this stuff. The stuff between them.

Clarke rolls her eyes, half-hearted, pushing down the emotions swirling around in her chest. “You pretend like you’re eighty-two and on your deathbed.” Her fingers curl around the fabric of his shirt covering his chest, grasping on tightly as being able to shake his insecurities from him. “You’re twenty-three, asshole. You still have your whole life ahead of you, too.” She offers him a shaky smile, swallowing tightly, smoothing her hands over his shoulders. “And I want to share the whole life I have ahead of myself with people who make me better, who make me want to be better.” She tilts her head, ghosting her thumbs over either side of his throat lightly. “And that’s you.”

A lot shutters across his eyes in the matter of just a few seconds, and then a tentative teasing smirk breaks across his face. His hands fold over her hips, squeezing. “Despite the company that I keep?”

She laughs, even surprising herself as she pushes closer to him. “Despite the company you keep and their sex offenses involving nuts, yes.”

“I have my keys,” he says, licking his lips as he looks down at her. “We could leave. I doubt any of them will notice and they know the way out.”

She connects her hands at the base of his neck, pressing up on her tiptoes to kiss his chin. Then his jaw. “Kane’s away on a business trip, and I’m sure my mom’s popped an ambien or two by now, so you don’t have to worry about running into her.”

“You’re hilarious,” he deadpans, eyes gleaming as his hands slide over to her ass, gripping playfully.

Her smug grin grows. “Forty-seven hours now to convince me not to replace you with a frat boy or one of my sorority sisters next time they offer. Tick tock, Bell--” 

She’s cut off by her own squeal, followed up by loud laughter as he bands an arm around the back of her thighs and hoists her up into the air, carrying her down the steps into his backyard. “Plenty of time for you to eat your words.”

Just to earn her that dark rumble of laughter she loves so much, she presses teasingly, “As long as it’s not the only kind of eating being done.”


	7. the devil on my shoulder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Clarke's flunking Mr. Blake's Earth History class. Ark AU.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> prompt by obviously maria: ark student clarke/ teacher bellamy au possessiveness and angst in the tags please and thank you
> 
> this was stuck in the drafts and i was gonna upload this last week but i was in a car accident. smutty saturday or something girlies? idk what day it is bro

Everyone likes Mr. Blake because he’s fairly young and really fit because he spent a few years on the guard before becoming a teacher. Clarke likes him because he’s easy to tease.

“So Bellamy, what made you want to teach?” Her mom asks him while handing her dad the dish of mashed potatoes that taste like tissue paper. Currently, Clarke’s fingers are walking up the inside of his thigh, despite the fact he’s swatted her away two times and has even sent her an inconspicuous glare when her parents weren’t looking.

He scrapes his throat, wrapping his fingers around her wrist to keep her still. He keeps facing forward, but the tips of ears are tinted just a shade more red than usual. “I’ve had a passion for history since I was just a boy and have always felt excited to pass along that interest to others,” Bellamy’s voice is as steady as always, as if at a job interview or a performance review, which, considering the station he hails from and now currently is eating dinner in, this might as well be. Her parents have a reputation. “I love when students eventually end up sharing my enthusiasm for the subject, when they’re willing to learn.”

“That’s nice,” her father says, conversatorily, to which her mother adds, saccharine sweet, “Clarke has always been an eager student.” 

Clarke’s been flunking Earth History for the better part of her senior year, so the comment makes her roll her eyes. Naturally her mom’s big idea was to invite her teacher over for dinner, smooth talk him into giving her some extra credit assignments probably. Little does her mother know, it has nothing to do with the course material and everything to do with Clarke’s ‘attitude’. She doesn’t really get the big deal anyway. There’s been a job lined up for her as her mother’s apprentice down in the medbay ever since she was old enough to talk. It’s not like an U — for Unsatisfactory — in an useless history class is going to change anything. Like the ESNU system isn’t terribly outdated anyway.

“She certainly is,” Mr. Blake agrees easily enough, tightening his grip around her wrist before he shovels a piece of protein tofu into his mouth. She can still feel the imprints of his fingertips burning into her skin as he pointedly lifts her hand off his thigh, putting it back on top of hers.

She takes a sip of water, ignoring the way her own cheeks are getting heated. The other students aren’t wrong. He’s _really_ hot, and now he’s praising her, which she’s found she likes, even if the double meaning doesn’t get lost on her.

Ever since the start of the year she’s been trying her hardest to get him to break. Trading her mom’s jewelry for the shortest skirts available, dropping her pencil by his desk, showing up early and lingering after class, sucking up and overdoing it on her papers and tests. Early on, during the first couple of months, she noticed she might like the fastburning gratification of getting one of his questions right in class, but she liked the slowburn of satisfaction when she got it absurdly wrong, if she was unapologetically late, or questioned his teaching style in front of the entire class, even more. 

The way his nostrils would flare trying to hold himself back, and his bronze forearms would flex as he gripped the back of his chair tightly, and how she’d manage to keep his attention for longer than the few seconds she got when she pleased him. He was easy to work up, and it was even easier to get herself off quickly in the bathroom after. 

Also, Clarke thinks Earth History is really _fucking_ boring. She thinks Mr. Blake could be doing better things with his mouth. Preferably her. 

Her father smiles at the compliment for his daughter, obviously pleased, before changing the subject to the football match they replayed in the main hall yesterday, finally giving Clarke a moment to breathe. Mr. Blake matches the conversation easily, and if she’s not mistaken she spots some of the same relief in the way some of the tension drains from his shoulders. 

It could also be she’s no longer groping him, but she’s hoping to change that fast.

Dinner goes by quickly, and since one of her mother’s operations ran late before they started dinner, it’s way after curfew when Mr. Blake finishes the drink her dad offered him for dessert and he accepted entirely out of politeness. 

See, Clarke has also noticed other things about him. In the line at the mesh hall, and the bridge that overlooks the earth, and at the school’s Christmas party. She’s noticed he’s kind to people when he thinks they won’t notice, always takes his rations to his room, tugs on his ear when he’s nervous, and for some reason is simultaneously angry at and longing for an unhabitable planet. And another one of which is that he loves scotch and can even down pure moonshine with a straight face, but despises the malt whiskey her dad favors. 

“If any of the guards give you any trouble, just let them know you were with us,” her father tells her teacher as he reaches for the code panel by the front door, tapping in the exit code. He sticks out his hand for Mr. Blake to shake, which he does. 

From the glint in her dad’s eyes, she can tell he’s satisfied with his grip. “I can walk you out of the station,” Clarke says as the door slides open with a hiss, like her mother instructed her to do at breakfast that morning. Quality one-on-one time would be great for asking for some _leniency_.

“That’s fine,” Mr. Blake brushes her off, sounding completely neutral as his eyes flit up to the digital clock above their television. “It’s late.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” her mother interjects just as easily, waving him off as she shuffles Clarke’s towards the opening of the door. “This level is beyond safe, and it would be her pleasure.”

“Right,” Mr. Blake agrees, just a brief clench to his jaw before he’s sending her mom a placating smile. Her mother apparently missed the bitterness in his tone completely, but Clarke caught it. Sometimes she forgets that Alpha Station has privileges other stations don’t. It’s doubtful anyone would be allowed to roam around Factory Station at this hour without facing any serious repercussions.

They walk down the narrow hallways leading towards the main hall in silence. It’s not uncomfortable, but it’s also not comfortable. Clarke’s entire body is buzzing with something she can’t name, something she hasn’t really experienced before. She’s been with Finn, and Lux, and they made her excited, and even nervous, but they never made her insecure. Mr. Blake is different. He’s unpredicatable, and she’s figured out some of his buttons, but somehow he always has more up his sleeve. 

They come to a halt in front of the window right before the diamond split interchange leading either to the general hall, any number of stations, or eventually, in fifteen minutes or so, Factory Station. Mr. Blake scrapes his throat lightly, raising one of his eyebrows at her. “So, is this the point where you ask me to let you retake your last test? An extra credit paper?” He sounds completely unfazed, arms crossed over his chest. “Maybe just insist I up your grade to something more acceptable because you say so?”

Clarke knows she could push him, tease him about how she’d have so much to offer in return, or she could surprise him with something more genuine. “Sorry about my parents,” she starts, and she means it. Specifically her mother was embarrassing as hell tonight. Although Clarke doesn’t care for Earth History, she has enough respect for Mr. Blake as a teacher to recognize she can’t expect a good grade from him without doing anything in return. It’s not like he hasn’t been more than willing to teach her. “Appearances are important to them.”

His lips press together in a tight line. “I suppose I can see why. They’re on the council after all.”

Clarke watches him, pursing her mouth slightly. “But you don’t care about that.”

“I don’t.” He sniffs, offering her half a shrug. “You get the grade you deserve.”

Something about the word deserve makes her skin prickle with an insistent need, making her adjust her stance so she can rub her thighs together for even just a second of relief. “It’s not that I’m not willing to learn,” Clarke explains, truthfully. “I don’t see the purpose of wasting my time on Earth History when my entire life’s been mapped out for me.”

“At least you get to have a life,” Mr. Blake retorts solemnly, in a way that sounds mysterious, forlorn, that has her wondering. Clarke’s brow furrows as she studies his face, but he isn’t giving anything away. He has more secrets than she thought, and she wants to unravel them all. 

“I guess,” she settles on, finally, after a brief moment of silence, not sure what path to take next.

The corner of his mouth twitches. “You never know, Miss Griffin. Plans change.”

One of her eyebrows quirks up. “History doesn’t.”

“True,” he relents with a tilt of his head in that aggravating way he sometimes does in class that implies he both knows better and is smug about it too. “We’re also doomed to repeat it.”

Clarke is at the point she feels like maybe she should just come out and say it, cross this line they’re so carefully tiptoeing around. “Mr. Blake—”

Briefly, his eyes flutter shut, his jaw clenching. “Don’t.”

His gaze is on her as soon as she speaks, tension thick in the air. “Why not?” Clarke swallows hard, eyes flicking down to watch his fingers uncurl from his fists. 

Someone from her station’s guard passes the two of them, glancing at the both of them before giving Bellamy a nod in casual greeting. He returns the gesture with a straight face, keeping his eyes on the man until he’s completely out of their sight. He lowers his voice, his eyes darkening on her face. “I’d rather not discuss this here.”

“Why not?” She repeats herself, not giving him an inch. 

“Stop playing dumb, Clarke,” he hisses, low as his eyes narrow into dark sliths. “You’re my student.”

“I’m graduating in two months, even if I don’t pass your class,” she tells him confidently, figuring for every argument he could make, she has a counter one. It’s mostly because all of his arguments are stupid. She’s not a child even if he’s technically her teacher, and she knows what she wants. She’s known it from the second she first laid eyes on him. “I turned eighteen last month.” She shuffles just a tiny bit closer, teeth biting into her bottom lip for a moment. Her fingers twitch at her side, wanting to reach out, as she holds his gaze. “You remember, don’t you? I was wearing that dress, it was above the knee. Blue.”

Clarke watches his adam’s apple bob up and down visibly, his teeth gritting together in what must be close to painfully tight. She remembers her birthday so clearly; how hard she tried to get him to look at her in that dress all day, saving him the best horribly tasting carrot cake cupcake, how he held out on telling her happy birthday until she was the last to leave class. Time seems to stretch on and on, the few seconds of silence between them feeling like hours. 

“Nobody has to know,” she tries softly, knowing she’s pushing it and doing it anyway.

Something seems to snap within him then, because he takes her by the wrist roughly, shoving her into a nearby janitor’s closet. It’s a tight fit, but Clarke can’t say she minds. His eyes have somehow turned even darker, nearly all the way black as he rakes her face. “What’s your angle here, Clarke?” His fingertips dig into her upperarms. “Do you want to get me fired?” 

Her next inhale is shaky, both because of his proximity and the realisation of what would happen if anyone were to find out. “They’d float you for touching me.”

Mr. Blake reels back, putting as much distance in between them as possible, his voice rougher than before. “So that’s your big masterplan?” He scoffs. “Just because you don’t want to bother doing your homework? Because you don’t like being told no?”

She curses herself. Wrong thing to say. “It’s not… You’re—” Clarke swallows, hard, feeling her cheeks heat. “Hot,” she forces herself to say. “Really hot. And I like it when you compliment me.”

His brow furrows together, and he pauses to skeptically search her face before wondering, “Then why are you underperforming in my class?”

“Compliment me on things that matter,” she corrects herself, knowing she isn’t doing herself any favors. She figures it’s better to be honest, though. He seems to be able to see right through her. “I like hearing you talk during class, but I don’t really listen to what you say. I like watching you move your hands during lectures, and—”

“Clarke,” he scolds, almost embarrassed, but from the way his eyes dip down to her mouth she can tell he’s close to breaking.

“What?” She asks him, purposely obtuse, forcing herself to stifle the teasing smirk wanting to fight it’s way across her face. “I don’t want anyone to find out either. It can be our little secret.”

“A secret?” He echoes, dumbfounded, as if it couldn’t simply be that easy. She wants to show him it can be. She’s good at lying, and even better at getting her way no matter what. 

“Yeah,” Clarke agrees, her tongue dipping out to wet her lips, drawing his attention back to them. “That I’m yours.”

“Mine?” His eyes trace the path of saliva her tongue’s left, his own mouth slightly agape as his breathing comes in and goes out harder. 

“I want you,” she confesses, this time giving in to the urge to touch him, fingertips ghosting over the hard muscle of his shoulder. “Only you.” Her hand flattens over the junction where his shoulder and neck meet, thumb brushing over the hollow of his throat. Her voice only shakes slightly, from anticipation or nerves she doesn’t know, when she wonders, “Do you only want me?”

“Does it matter?” Mr. Blake snaps, although there’s not much heat to it. His forehead wrinkles, his teeth gritting together again as his fingers reach up to curl around her wrist. “If I told you I have a girlfriend, or a wife, would you stop and walk away?”

“No,” she confesses, the easiest thing she’s ever admitted to. She knows there is no one else. She knows he needs someone to make him feel good. She knows she can give that to him. “But I know it’s true for you too.” She tips up her chin, blue eyes insistent on his. “You want me.” The corners of her mouth turn up, tilting her head slightly. “I’ve seen you looking.”

“You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into,” he starts, shaking his head lightly as he pulls her hand off him, slowly lowering it back down. He’s trying very hard, but she can tell he’s faltering. That for once, he’s not immune to her. Mr. Blake tells himself as much as her, rough, “We shouldn’t.”

“We don’t have much time,” Clarke ignores him, starting to unbutton the top buttons of her short-sleeved blouse as she leans back against the wall with her shoulder blades. “If I stay away too long my parents will start to wonder where I am.”

“This is a bad idea,” he reaffirms, mostly to himself, but his dark brown eyes are fixated on the creamy skin of the tops of her breasts that are slowly being revealed. 

“Probably,” she starts to say, but before she even finishes the first syllable he’s kissing her, his hand firmly seizing her chin. He licks into her, taste heavy with whiskey, his tongue warm against hers, all thoughts wiped from her mind.

“Take this off,” he orders, tugging on the bottom of her white blouse before stepping back, locking the door. Clarke’s entire body grows jittery from excitement, her heart racing, quickly fumbling the buttons loose before awaiting his next move. She hasn’t gotten to take it this far with him before outside of her classroom daydreams and bedtime fantasies. He is always so good about keeping his distance, about not blurring the lines and refusing her obvious advances no matter what she did, or said, or wore to class. On most days, she admired his resolve more than she was annoyed by it, but the difference was infinitesimal.

“Good job,” Mr. Blake commends, caressing the side of her face softly, the gesture in stark contrast with his rough voice. “You’re so pretty, but you know that, don’t you?” Her eyes drop to the obvious bulge in his pants, feeling herself grow impatient fast. Instead of allowing her to keep looking, he reaches for the button on hers, quickly unfastening it. 

Gone is his hesitation from before. He frees his cock from his own pants, already beyond hard for her as he strokes himself a few times. Clarke feels her mouth water, her pussy ache. She wants him so badly. Wants to please him, make him groan out her name and crave her touch as much as she craves his. 

She whimpers, watching his every move closely. “Can I call you Bellamy?”

He smirks at her pleading tone, cocking one of his brows teasingly. “I don’t know. Can you?”

“Please,” Clarke presses, wanting to feel closer to him, put less distance in between them, wants to pretend they could be more than longing stares and janitor closets, adding a pointed, “Mr. Blake.”

“I’ll allow it,” he relents, his hand dipping into her panties and meeting her wet, slick heat eagerly. She immediately shifts forward, bucking into his touch, but he presses his forearm over her collarbone, keeping her in place. “Don’t get greedy,” he chastisies, only managing to send another thrill up her spine. 

Clarke pants heavily with excitement, but manages to obey him as he works her clit expertly, using her own arousal to make it easier. His eyes are a few shades darker than usual, tainted with desire and it’s hard to look away from him. She swallows, and waits, keeping his intense gaze as if she might die if she doesn’t. He’s obviously enjoying her impatience, can feel it radiating off her. 

Bellamy presses down on the sensitive nub hard, earning a small squeak before halting his movements completely. He rasps, breath warm on her face, “Do you want to come like this?”

She starts shaking her head before he even finishes the question. “No, I want to come with you inside of me.” Clarke swallows hard, brushing back her hair from her eyes, forehead already growing damp from perspiration. “Please,” she tacks on, always the quick study. 

He starts to yank her pants down to give him more access, taking her boy shorts along with them. He doesn’t say as much, but she knows he’s going to give her what she wants. Clarke knows she’s probably pressing her luck, but she has to try anyway — small fingers reaching for his dick, running her thumb over the glistening tip, a hiss slipping past his lips in response. 

“Princess can’t keep her hands to herself, huh?” He reprimands with a dangerous tone, prying her fingers off him. “Turn around,” Bellamy demands, eyes glinting with something treacherous. “Face the wall. Hands up.”

Clarke does as he says, trembling with anticipation, and as soon as she does, he kicks her feet wider apart, fisting one hand into her hair to guide her head further down. She has no idea what his next move will be, which only increases the rapidness of the tension building between her thighs. She feels the coarse fabric of his shirt against her almost bare back, forming goosebumps all over her skin. He pushes her further against the wall with the weight of his body, mouthing down the side of her neck meanly, more teeth than tongue. She startles when she feels his cock slide in between her ass cheeks, moving through her folds next, getting himself nice and slick. 

“You still sure about this?” He sounds almost amused, probably mistaking her excitement for nerves. She’s not worried. She’s so sure of this, of him. 

All she can do in response is hum, her eyes squeezed tightly shut as she focuses on the sensations happening between her legs. 

Finally, after what seems like an eternity, he presses the head of his thick throbbing cock past her entrance, only letting her get used to the feel of it for a few seconds. Then he starts with a slow controlled movement, Clarke’s cunt throbbing with pleasure and pain at the same time.

Once he’s inside of her completely he drops his forehead to her shoulder, letting out a muffled groan. Her pussy flutters around him, thoroughly enjoying the fact it’s as good for him as it is for her. “You really were made for me, weren’t you?” He rasps, rough, the hand in her hair tightening it’s grip. “All mine.”

“I was,” she pants, eager, struggling to breathe, to find purchase on the wall. Everything feels like it’s too much. “Fuck, I am. I am yours.” She almost regrets not following the rules earlier because she can’t seem him, can’t feel as much of his body as she’d like to, but the angle more than makes up for it. 

His hand lets off her hair to slide along her arm, until he reaches her hand, intertwining their fingers. Her heart skips a beat in time with his next thrust, moaning loudly as her head drops forward, pressing her forehead against the wall. 

“Quiet, princess. You don’t want anyone to stop us now, do you?” Bellamy whispers in her ear, nipping at the lobe slightly before pressing a kiss right below it as a reward for the squeak she bites down, sinking her teeth into her bottom lip. Everything he says or does just heightens her pleasure more and more. “You don’t want anyone to see little Miss Perfect, daughter of not one, but two council members, being fucked by her teacher, now do you?”

He fastens his pace, her need rising and rising. The fingertips of his free hand ghost over her spine, before moving around her ribs to grip at his breast. “Next time I’ll show these some real love, huh?”

Her stomach flips at the mention of a next time, making a sweet little sound as he pinches her nipple through the fabric of her bra. His words make sense when she realizes it was just a detour to where she really needs him. “You feel so good, Clarke. _God_ ,” he compliments, growling against her shoulder as he presses two fingers down over her clit, hard. Her entire body glows warmly, her mouth tasting like metal from how hard she’s biting down on her lip to keep from making any noise. 

Moving deeper and faster with the combined pressure over her clit, Clarke can feel herself reaching the edge fast, her whole body trembling. A slight shift of his hips, and the head of his cock is rubbing over a spot deep within her just right, her back arching into him instinctively. Pleasure washes over her as the fingers of one hand tighten around hers, while the nails of her other hand drag deeper into her palm. Fuck, fuck, fuck — she’s never felt this good, she didn’t know she could.

He’s breathing heavy into her ear now, his next thrust rough enough to make her cry out loudly as she feels herself crest again, that inexplicable pleasure so incredibly close so unbelieveably fast she can nearly grasp onto it. He’s so far gone he doesn’t even chastise her for running her mouth. “You like that, huh?” Bellamy groans, his voice husky. All Clarke can do is whimper, pushing her ass back to meet every one of his near violent thrusts, nearly overwhelmed from all the sensations.

“God, listen to you. Finally getting your way after a year of torture,” he babbles darkly, each drag of his cock inside of her hard and deliberate. “I bet Collins never fucked you like this, did he?” He nips at her shoulder meanly, pinching at her clit. She jolts from the pleasure pain, making small soft noises in response because she can’t do anything else, completely at his mercy. “Answer me.”

“No,” Clarke rasps, barely able to form any words at this point, cheeks hot as she ducks her forehead, leaning it against the cool steel wall. She knew she didn't imagine all the dirty looks he used to send Finn in class, the way he would purposely make him answer questions he knew her ex-boyfriend wouldn't know the answer to and embarrass him in front of the whole class, make sure he wasn't paired up with her in group projects, always making a big deal about the school's PDA rules. “Was always thinking of you.”

“Of course you were,” he agrees with a small, mirthless chuckle, the next pump of his hips rough enough to propel her entire body forward into the wall, making her cry out his name as another orgasm washes over her, making her toes curl in her Ark issued boots. “Because you’re mine. All of you.” 

“I always was,” she agrees wholeheartedly, voice so hoarse it comes out a near whisper as she breathes hard. 

He groans softly, burying his head in the crook of her neck as he spills inside of her, teeth digging into her shoulder to muffle the sound. Her body twitches from overstimulation, greedy cunt fluttering around him almost painfully. Breathless, he collapses against her, staying there for a minute to gain back his senses. 

Bellamy swipes her hair over her opposite shoulder, placing a delicate kiss to the back of her neck. “You did so good.”

  
Her legs are still shaking but she manages to turn around, leaning her weight back against the wall. Bellamy helps get her underwear and pants back up over her hips, pressing an apologetic kiss to her jaw. “Sorry I don’t have anything to clean you up with,” he says almost guiltily, reaching for her blouse. 

“It’s fine.” Clarke actually quite likes the idea of facing her parents with her teacher’s come dripping from her legs. That’s what they get for meddling with her life. It’s not the reason why, but it’s a welcome byproduct of fucking him. She takes the garment from him, lets him caress her damp hair away from her face. He doesn’t look directly at her as he murmurs, “Was that okay?”

“Perfect,” she confirms with a smile, starting to slip her arms into the blouse. Hesitating, she licks her lips, still tasting him and her father’s whiskey. “I meant what I said.”

“Good,” he grumles, albeit fondly, kissing her pulsepoint before his lips travel to her shoulder, nosing aside her shirt before soothing the mark he’s certainly left earlier. “So did I,” Bellamy asserts, his hand petting her pussy, mouth moving against her skin and making goosebumps errupt all over her body. “Nobody else is allowed to touch you.”

As if she would even want that. She hums lightly, meeting his gaze as he slowly lifts his head. Clarke can’t help but crash her mouth on his, deep and dirty and needy, until they’re both panting and bursting with want. A smirk breaks across her face, almost giddy from victory. “So. Still an U?”

He lets out a huff of laughter, rumbling from deep within his chest as he fixes her shirt, starting to button it up from the bottom. “It’s definitely up for discussion, Miss Griffin.”

Clarke bats her eyelashes innocently, trying not to react to his knuckles grazing her soft skin. “Maybe some extracurricular tutoring, Mr. Blake?”

“Oh, so _now_ you’re interested in Earth History?”

She rolls her eyes. “It’s not the subject matter I want to inspect closely.”

He remains completely unfazed. “I can’t be with someone who got an U in my class so we’re going to have to make a compromise.”

“Is me simply sucking your dick once a week not enough?” She only half-jokes. 

He gives her a pointed look over his shoulder as he reaches for the lock, making her sigh out dramatically as she links their fingers together, hugging his arm to her chest to pull his attention back on her. “Fine. I’ll get my grade up if you let me re-do the midterm and give me a two-day extension on yesterday’s paper.”

Squeezing her hand, Bellamy smiles, making her stomach flip. “That’s my girl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> they're tryna take down bellarkes one by one so if i were any of you i'd stay away from cars  
> also no proof read head concussed

**Author's Note:**

> im [here](http://www.captaindaddykru.tumblr.com) and also here [here](http://www.twitter.com/captaindaddykru)


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